


Where Do We Go When We Die?

by ParadiseAvenger



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:10:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 65
Words: 173,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadiseAvenger/pseuds/ParadiseAvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day her mother's cryptic postcard arrived, Maka Albarn did something she had never done before and had never wanted to. She bought a slave! She had to, though, because he was inches from a cruel death. AU. Adult themes. MakaXSoul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mother's Mysterious Message?

Please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! **The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger.** (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

…

Well, seems I just couldn’t resist. Are we really surprised? So, expect be to play favorites between this and Taking Sora, but whatever. I decided to write this because there’s about two Soul Eater stories with slaves in them. Allow me to step in! We all know how much I like to crush everyone’s boundaries.

NOTE: I mentioned the Academy, but it’s not going to be all Weapon-Meister-afied. Everyone is going to be nice semi-normal humans (except for Kid—he’s just freakish no matter what anyone does about it) in this story and only human! More on the Academy as it actually becomes a part of the story. It was just a cameo appearance so far. I’m going to have to work out Lord Death… Hmm, Headmaster Death or something, but what can he look like? Oh well, I’ll figure it out as I go along!

X X X

Maka Albarn supposed she would never really know what dragged her out of bed after a particularly vicious night of insomnia, but something did. She got out of bed, forced herself through a shower as harsh as going through a car wash, dressed in something plain so she would blend in with the crowd, and had half an orange for breakfast. Then, she lingered beside the front door for ten minutes—just waiting for something, though she wasn’t quite sure what at the time. 

Insomnia… 

The night was so long when you couldn’t sleep. How did vampires do it and still make it look cool? Insomnia just plain sucked, but she supposed it was better than nightmares. Maka had been plagued with both for about five years—well, one cancelled the other out, but she wasn’t sure which one she hated more. 

Insomnia…

Or nightmares…

Yawning, she felt the dark bags under her eyes. What was she waiting for? Why was she standing here, heart throbbing, feeling like something important was going to happen? It turned out only to be one of her mother’s cryptic postcards, slipped through the slot in the door at exactly 6:14 am. (This time, Maka didn’t tear open the door in search of the mailman. She knew by now that it wasn’t the typical postman and that she was never going to catch whoever delivered her mother’s postcards. She had been trying for at least four years now.) Instead, Maka plucked up the postcard from the floor, spent a moment scrutinizing the familiar blank façade of the slave warehouse downtown, and wondered why this had dragged her exhausted body out of bed with some feeling of importance.

Honestly, her mother sent her a cryptic postcard at least once a month and it always said the same things: _How are you? I’m fine, a little tired maybe. The weather’s nice here, but I think there’s a storm on the way. How’s your papa? Sorry, I’m not home yet, but I just can’t leave this place. Something is calling my name. I have to figure out what’s going on before I can come home. It might not be safe for me, for you, for anyone, otherwise. Hope you’re doing well in school. I love you, Maka. Love, Mama._ Sometimes, her mother drew a smiley face in red ink or a sad face in blue or just a face in black.

But today, her mother’s monthly postcard was even more cryptic than usual, if that was even possible. Today, it had only two lines in thick red ink with a neat black skull drawn at the bottom. The blood-colored ink was dotted and smeared, as if her mother had been crying while she wrote. It read mysteriously: _Maka, please, listen to me. You need to get him from the slave warehouse. He needs your help and you’re going to need him to die for you in the future. Please, save him now and save yourself later._ That was it. The rest of the small card was blank. Actually, Maka realized, this wasn’t a postcard at all, but a photograph of the slave warehouse downtown. 

Weird! Did that mean her mother had been in town to take this picture? 

Maka put the postcard under a magnet on the refrigerator and took out the orange juice, not giving it any more thought. Her mother was crazy. Maybe she had smoked too much of everything during her hippie stint back in the 70s. Maybe it just ran in the family because Maka’s papa wasn’t all that sane either. Hell, Maka herself suffered from nightmares and insomnia. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in five years. 

She yawned as she poured some orange juice for herself and her eyes slid to the postcard, to the glossy photograph it was written on. 

The slave warehouse…

Maka hadn’t set foot in that place. A lot of her friends had slaves and really liked having them, but Maka had just never seen the need for one. She was self-sufficient, independent, and she didn’t need, want, or require anyone’s help. 

She finished her juice, put the cup in the sink, and filled it with water. She took the postcard off the fridge and read it again—slowly, as if maybe she had missed something—but it was just as strange the second and third times through. Should she go to the slave warehouse? Why bother, though? Her mother was nutty, after all, but Maka felt the tug in her head again, the same strangeness that had pulled her, exhausted, from her bed this morning.

What the hell! She was up. She may as well go, cryptic postcard and insomnia or not.

Maka grabbed her shoulder bag with her papa’s credit card and explicit instructions to use it for anything and everything she needed form tampons to perfume to food. Maka didn’t feel spoiled using her father’s card. She didn’t use it often—self-sufficient, remember?—but she might need it today. Quickly, she checked her face in the mirror, put a touch of concealer on the dark bags beneath her eyes, and left the house in search of her mother’s weird prediction. 

…

The morning over Death City was cool and rather bleak today. The laughing face of the sun was drooped down and melancholy-looking. Maka cast her eyes up at the Academy, looming like a great castle on the highest level of Death City. Heaving in a deep sigh, she trekked through the city until she reached the seedy horrors of downtown and compared the postcard with several vague and grey warehouses. It took her a moment to figure out which warehouse she was supposed to go into as none of them were named.

The Slave Warehouse had wobbly glass doors and was brightly lit like a hospital inside with tasteful feng-shui furniture to put people at ease. A pretty young woman in a tight red suit was sitting behind a desk, tap-tap-tapping away at her computer as she entered files for recently purchased, sold, killed, or otherwise moved slaves. A little bell jangled when Maka entered and she shuddered in the blinding fluorescent lights. The woman stopped her typing, folded her hands on the polished surface of the desk, and said cheerfully, “Hello and welcome. How may I help you?”

Maka wasn’t sure what to say now, though. ‘Hi, my crazy mother told me I had to come because there’s someone here I need so here I am,’ didn’t sound quite right. She cleared her throat and said slowly, “I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I’d like to browse a bit.”

“Of course.” She whirled back to her computer and began typing. “Is there any way I could narrow down your category?”

Maka licked her lips and said the first things that came to her mind. “My age—seventeen to nineteen. Sex—male,” she sputtered a bit. What now, she wondered?

“That’s quite enough if you can’t think of anything else,” the woman said. “We only have seventy-five slaves here in that category. That should fit your purposes nicely if you’re only looking to browse. It provides a nice mix.” She stood up sharply, heels clicking on the floor. “If you would follow me please.”

Maka followed the woman through one of three heavy doors. Blinding fluorescent lights came on as they walked, lighting up the cells and the slaves inside. Her heart began to thud and she felt a mean little thing in her chest like a small animal, but she wasn’t sure what it was. 

“They are organized by age and sex,” the woman said and gestured widely with one perfectly manicured hand. “These are Male Blocks Seventeen, Eighteen, and Nineteen. Please, feel free to browse.” She put a small remote into Maka’s hands. “Some are rebellious. You may use this to make them move.” 

Maka had seen it before. The remote delivered a powerful and painful electrical charge through the body of the nearest slave wearing a collar. Once a slave was purchased, the owner was given a remote specific to their new slave. Even so, Maka felt weird holding it. It was like having a dog on a leash and waving a steak in front of its nose. It was mean, but Maka found she kind of liked the idea of having that kind of power over another person.

Silently, she peered through the bars, hoping something would catch her eyes, but nothing jumped out at her until she reached Block Eighteen, but it wasn’t anything in that particular cell. It was the skirmish going on in Block Nineteen and the woman’s soft cry of, “Oh dear. Not right now.”

Maka snapped her head in that direction and saw what looked like all the slaves bearing down on someone small in the middle. Quickly, she marched over, relishing the power she had with this remote in her hands. She could make them do whatever she wanted!

There was a small muted scream from inside that pile and a strange ripping sound. 

“Move!” She snapped at the slaves inside the block. 

Dark eyes stared at her and they stopped, but didn’t move. Beneath the heap of bodies, there was a little bit of escaping movement and a small pale bloody hand reached out beneath the tangle of limbs. The nails clawed into the concrete, desperately dragging. One of the slaves brought something red to his mouth and began to eat. Without another breath, the horde returned to whatever they had pinned beneath them and Maka heard the muted cries and ripping again. What was going on in there?

“Move it!” She shouted and aimed the remote at the quivering mass of bodies. 

The first blast of electricity was all she needed to scatter most of them like cockroaches. Only a few remained, bravely staring her in the face and gripping the bloodstained arms of a frail young man. He was covered in blood, his face battered, and his feet scraping desperately for purchase on the concrete floor. There was a large fruitlike wound on his arm—was it a bite?

“Oh dear,” the woman said. “Please, understand, it’s pruning week.”

“Pruning week?” Maka repeated. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the bloodied young man and he was gazing at her so desperately, almost as if she was all that remained between him and oblivion. He had a strange face, maybe handsome beneath the bruises and blood, but she couldn’t be sure even what color his hair was. He was just so caked with blood and covered in filth and black wounds. He tugged at his arms, trying to escape the slaves that were holding his arms, but he couldn’t get away. His feet slid around on the floor, streaking blood. 

“Yes, we routinely starve each block so that they kill off the weakest among them,” she said but it was nonchalantly, as if it didn’t matter to her at all. It probably didn’t.

“Starve them?” Maka whispered and stared harder at the youth before her. 

His mouth slipped open, gasping for air, and he looked as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t get any words out.

“Yes, they eat the weakest.”

Maka’s heart skipped a beat and she saw the young man’s face pale beneath the blood and bruises. 

“Please, allow me to show you a different block,” the woman continued and gently took Maka by her elbow. “I’m sure you will find something to your liking.” She began to lead her away and Maka began to follow almost like a puppet on a string. 

There was a small strangled cry and something crashed against the bars. The sounds rang out in the silence of the warehouse, echoing over the cries and murmurs of other slaves. Maka whirled around, remembering suddenly what had been happening. 

Those slaves were about to eat that poor boy! 

Maka was about to yell, “Stop!” and the words were on her tongue, bitter and harsh. She tore away from the woman and whirled around, ash-blonde hair flying.

But the young man wasn’t in danger of cannibalism at that exact moment. He had flung his body into the bars and was reaching out one desperate bloody hand to her. His eyes were deep blood-red and rolling wildly in his skull. There were tattered strips of flesh hanging off his shoulders like macabre party decorations. “Please,” he whispered and his voice was very deep and throaty. “Don’t let them…” He glanced behind him at the horde of starving slaves, terrified.

A slave grabbed his shoulder from behind and pulled him back, but he desperately hung on to the bars even as that dirty hand peeled off one of the strips of flesh and brought it to his dirty mouth, chewing as if that was delicacy. The horde of starving slaves surged forward at the young man and he cowered desperately, those red eyes squeezing shut. 

Maka brandished the remote. “Stop!” When she saw that they weren’t going to move to eat the poor young man, she turned to the woman and said sharply, “Him. I want him.”

The woman blinked. “Eater? But he’s so…”

“He’s about to become food and I’m offering you money for him. Are you stupid?” Maka snarled.

The woman stepped back, her face going pale and brows knitting together. “Y-yes, you’re right. I’ll have someone bring him around in a few minutes.”

“No, take him out right now,” Maka demanded.

“But—”

“He’s going to be eaten alive.”

“I know, but—”

“Damn it! Take him out!”

“Y-yes, right away.” The woman went to call someone on the intercom. 

Maka remained beside the cell, watching everyone inside. The poor half-eaten boy slumped down against the bars, breathing hard and holding his stripped shoulder, and she saw his eyes slide desperately closed. He must have been like her all week—not sleeping—but, unlike her, his life depended on his ability to stay awake or else his body would be eaten alive.

“She’s taking Eater,” one of the slaves whispered.

“Aw, man, what are we going to eat?”

“Not Eater.” 

There was a small roll of laughter. 

Maka felt sick and turned to snap at the woman to hurry up, but she was smiling benevolently as if she hadn’t just almost witnessed someone being eaten alive. “Someone will be up in a moment to take him out and clean him up for you. Would you like to wait until they arrive?”

Maka nodded and passed the woman the remote. They didn’t have to wait long. Then, the poor bloodied youth—Eater, the woman and slaves had called him—was dragged away down the hall on weak trembling limbs and Maka returned to the office to buy his life from the cannibals in this warehouse. “Disgusting,” she whispered. 

Had this been what her mother’s postcard was talking about?

…

“Get naked,” the handler snarled through the dimness of the preparing room. “So, Eater, I hear you were barely saved by some pretty blonde. I heard you begged, but I guess the thought of being eaten alive is a lot scarier than just begging for your life.”

The moment he stripped down, Eater had been shoved beneath a spray of hard cold water that forcefully scrubbed all the filth and blood from his body. Teeth chattering beneath the freezing spray, he nodded and hugged his bitten shoulders, whimpering at the pain of the bites and tears in his flesh as the powerful jet assaulted the wounds. Everything hurt and he was starving, but he didn’t dare say anything. He was just happy to still be alive, to still have his flesh on his bones, at this point. He had been prepared to die earlier, but the thought of his death had turned him into a frightened child, begging to be saved by someone—by anyone! Even still, he was happy to be alive with his poor body uneaten.

“Lucky dog,” the handler snapped and shut off the icy jet of water. A stream of burning hot air was next, drying the icy water from Eater’s skin and warming him slightly, but it didn’t last long enough for the chill to leave him completely. Shivering, he stood naked while the mean handler fetched some fresh clothes for him. He lobbed the cotton pants and t-shirt at Eater’s face and snapped, “Get dressed, you dog.”

Shivering with cold, Eater did as he was told.

…

Maka finished signing her name to the receipts and accepted the file of papers, remote for his punishment collar, and some shiny silver shackles from the pretty woman who returned immediately to tap-tapping away on her computer. She stuffed these terrible things into her shoulder bag, not wanting to look at them any longer than absolutely necessary, and then stood to wait for her new slave. 

Eater, they had called him. It was even written on his papers. What kind of name was that?

Finally, from one of the three doors, he emerged with his hands cuffed in front of him, a chain attached to his collar, and a handler jerking him meanly along by his throat like a disobedient dog. When the handler laid eyes on Maka, he became deceptively gentle and Maka narrowed her green eyes into slits. Grinning, he handed over Eater’s leash and Maka jerked it from his hands, not thinking about what it was attached to, and accidentally yanked on Eater’s throat. He stumbled forward, a small cry escaping his mouth.

Maka almost apologized, but the handler was staring at her so she silently led Eater out of the warehouse and back into the streets of the necropolis.

X X X

So, there’s the beginning. 

VOCAB WORD OF THE DAY!!!! I couldn’t resist putting in the word necropolis because I just discovered it and it means “City of the Dead” in Latin. It’s really a large elaborate cemetery but hey, I can be creative if I want! How perfect is that to describe Death City, anyway?

So, long first chapter. 

And remember everyone, cannibalism is frowned upon in modern society no matter the circumstances so… DON’T DO IT! It’s bad…

Questions, comments, concerns?


	2. The Strange Purple Dawn

I love how fast my stories become popular. You all must stalk me… *glances around sheepishly* Where are the cameras?

I have to say, Maka’s acting like a model flake, but bear with her.

NOTE: To anyone who is reading this just to follow me and hasn’t seen any Soul Eater episodes or read the manga or anything, you need to look up the moon and sun for this show or you’re going to feel a little lost!

X X X

A weird kind of purple day had dawned while Maka was inside the Slave Warehouse, saving Eater from being eaten alive. The sky was mottled and bruised, like someone had abused it brutally, and it was desperately trying to recover with the rays of buttery laughing sunlight peeking through the purple-black layer. It was kind of how Maka felt, blackened on the outside with something soft and bright trying to claw its way out of her skin. Even so, she still felt that mean little buzzing somewhere inside the cage of her chest, bitter and cruel, but maybe it was just from not sleeping. She couldn’t really be certain, but she felt strange since she dragged herself out of bed that morning.

The chain in Maka’s hand connected to Eater’s collar was cold in her palm and cut into her flesh because she was gripping it so tightly. Behind her, Eater dragged his feet noisily and stumbled along at least three steps behind her as he was supposed to. 

No one on the street spared them a glance even though red blood was seeping through Eater’s clothes where he had been bitten and Maka was marching down the sidewalk like some kind of soldier, yanking on his throat occasionally yet accidentally. 

Finally, they reached Maka’s small house. She fished her key from her shoulder bag, unlocked the door, and shooed Eater inside ahead of her. Only then did she notice that his feet were bare and there were bruises around his ankles that peeked out beneath the hem of his too-short pants. 

She hung her bag on the coat rack, closed the door behind herself, and stooped to gather the mail that had arrived now courtesy of the real mailman. She shuffled through it as she walked to the kitchen. It was all for her father even though he didn’t live with her. This was his house after all, but Maka took care of everything else—self-sufficient, remember? 

She threw the mail on the table, turned around to face Eater, and leaned on the counter leisurely. “So, Eater,” she began, but she wasn’t sure what to say after that. 

Instead, she could only gaze at him, taking in his appearance and injuries. He had a strange face—his features were strong and well-defined, aristocratic even, as if he came from a distinguished family. His mouth was strong and wide, soft lush lips though they were bitten and chapped now, and straight white teeth that had been filed into dangerous shark-like points. He had hair the color of starlight, silvery like light on water or glimmering fish scales, as pure white as freshly fallen snow. His nose was slightly crooked, broken, and reset almost perfectly so that she wouldn’t even have noticed if she hadn’t been scrutinizing him so closely. Most captivating were his eyes. They were blood-red, fringed with snow-white lashes so long that they cast dark shadows on his pale face, and one eye was occluded with fingers of blood that stretched toward the crimson iris. Someone had punched him in the face.

His body was hidden beneath those baggy cotton clothes and the color was ugly enough to taint his slightly-tanned skin into a washed-out grey-greenish shade that made him look sick. The shirt was far too big, hanging off his skull-like shoulders and fluttering across his concave stomach. The shirt was more like a sack than real clothing. The pants, on the other hand, were too short and also too small. She could see his bruised ankles at the bottom, poking out beneath the torn hems, and his dirty feet. His knobby knees pressed out against the tight fabric farther up. Thankfully, the pants were baggy in the crotch and thighs, but she could see his sharp hips pressing out like wings trying to fly away from his body. His arms were a mess of blood, there was a circle of red on his thigh, and a big scabbed-over bite on the side of his throat just above his collar. The chain from his collar was hanging down against his chest, pooling on the floor like a silver viper.

“Hmm,” Maka mumbled and raked her eyes back over his battered face. 

Eater shuffled nervously under her stern hard gaze and lowered his scarlet eyes to the floor. He pressed his hands to his stomach, cautiously feeling out something beneath the loose fabric—maybe another wound. Then, he put his fingers to a cut on his mouth and scraped at the dried blood there. 

“Stop that,” Maka said firmly and turned to rifle through the fridge. She pulled out some milk, eggs, bread, cheese, and a packet of bacon. Then, she began cooking with a sort of righteous vigor, clanging pots and pans, and bumbling around. “Can you cook, Eater?” she asked.

He nodded, silvery hair feathering against his cheeks.

“That’s good. Have a seat for now. You look like you’re about to drop dead,” Maka said. She didn’t notice him flinch at those words, just continued clattering around at the stove. She cracked some eggs into a bowl, scrambled them, added a dash of milk to fluff them perfectly, and poured them into the heated pan. 

Nervously, Eater knelt beside the table and clenched his hands into fists until his bones ached. His stomach growled, but his new master didn’t appear to notice. He wondered if she was going to feed him or starve him—probably starve him. He lowered his eyes from her back and shuddered. The cold of the tile floor was seeping into his body.

Within ten minutes, Maka had whipped together a late brunch of cheese omelets, a side of crunchy bacon, toast with butter, and tall glasses of milk. She settled everything on the table, pulled back a chair, sat down, and then looked at Eater. He was staring down at his hands, fingers curled into tight fists, and shaking slightly.

“Sit at the table if you want to eat. If you’re not hungry, just stay there then,” she said.

He glanced up at her sharply, ruby eyes strange. He looked confused and a little afraid.

“It’s not a trick statement,” Maka told him coolly. “I have no intention of starving you.”

Both their minds flashed to what had happened in the Slave Warehouse—the descending horde of starving slaves about to eat the flesh off his bones, his poor muted screams, the wet ripping sounds of torn flesh like someone eating fried chicken, and his desperate terror. 

After a moment of silence, Maka dug into her breakfast and flatly ignored him. On the floor, Eater glanced up at her, wondering if this was for real. The scent of breakfast teased and tormented him and his starving stomach growled again. He pressed both hands to it, trying to silence it. 

Despite herself, Maka glanced at him. His face was nervously lowered and she could see him chewing his already chapped lips. She almost wanted to strike out at him in anger and frustration. She had made him breakfast, told him to eat if he wanted so it wasn’t even an order, and ignored him so he wouldn’t feel pressured. She wasn’t a mean person. In fact, she was kinder than half her friends were to their slaves. She had saved him from his terrible fate, hadn’t she? So what was he hesitating for? Instead, she bit her lip, kept silent, and dug into her omelet. 

Finally, Eater rose from the cold floor, cautiously pulled back the chair beside her, and slid in. He hesitated again there, staring at the steaming plate of food, and carefully finally picked up the chopsticks. He struggled with them in his fingers for a moment, looking unsure. 

“Can you not use chopsticks?” Maka asked after a long moment.

He jolted, startled, and the chopsticks clattered onto his plate. Alarmed, he glanced at her and then slammed his eyes down at his plate as if she was a monster he just couldn’t look at.

“Well?”

He shook his head and gingerly lifted the chopsticks again. 

Should she teach him? Maka wondered and watched him struggle again. He was trembling badly, but it didn’t look like fear tremors. It looked like he was starving half to death so she simply said, “Just use your hands. It’s alright.”

He didn’t look at her and his reaction was a testimony to his hunger. He dropped the chopsticks aside the plate, quickly dug into the food with his fingers, and had cleaned his plate in seconds. Then, he pushed a single crumb around his plate with his finger nervously. Silently, Maka lifted her plate and slid it before him. Nervously, he pushed it away and that was her breaking point. He was starving and she was giving him extra food.

She snapped at him, “You’re a slave. Eat it!”

He shuddered, but ate anyway. Within a few more moments, he had cleaned her plate as well and sat staring at it while his entire body slowly began to stop shaking. Maka stared hard at him, knowing that she was making him uncomfortable yet she didn’t care. 

Finally, she said, “I’m going to lie down for a while. Do the dishes and put them on the rack to dry. Don’t touch anything else.”

Maka got to her feet, pushed in her chair, grabbed her shoulder bag, snatched her mother’s postcard off the fridge, and stalked to her room. She slammed the door as hard as she could, but she had no idea why she was so worked up suddenly. Again, she blamed it on the insomnia. She threw herself down on the bed, buried her face in her pillow, and let out a muffled scream of frustration. What on earth was going on with her life?

First, there were her mother’s monthly cryptic postcards, each stranger than the last!

Second, for once, she had listened to her mother’s cryptic letters and found herself owning a half-eaten starving young man! 

Third, she had discovered that the slave warehouses had ‘pruning weeks’ were they allowed the starving stronger slaves to kill and eat the weakest one in the cell block!

Fourth, she was an insomniac who suffered from nightmares that woke her screaming even though she could never remember what happened in them. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in five years.

Fifth, she had homework! She had to read all the paperwork that came along with getting a slave, set the punishments on the remote she wanted for his collar, and learn how to deal with someone else living in her far-from-perfect self-sufficient little world.

It just wasn’t looking like it was going to be a promising week. 

Groaning, Maka rolled over, glanced out her window at the bruised sky, and dug the folder of paperwork out of her shoulder bag. She spread the papers across her bedspread and peered over them, trying to decide what she wanted to read first. She decided to start with the guidelines before moving on to organizing the receipts she needed to keep. Maka plucked the little black remote from the mess of papers and stared at it. There were five buttons, each numbered from one to five.

_STEP ONE—How to Set Punishments:_

_1\. Hold the remote in your hands._

_2\. Think of one of the numbers between one and five._

_3\. Visualize the punishment you want for that specific number._

_4\. You will see the light at the top of the remote flash red. When it turns green, the punishment will be set._

_5\. Repeat until all five or desired amount of punishments are set in the remote’s controls._

Grumbling, Maka cradled the remote in her hands and thought of the number one. Then, she wondered what on earth she was supposed to punish Eater with. She thought about the electric shock programmed into the remote at the warehouse, visualized that, and waited for the light to turn green. Then, she thought about the second number, pictured her slave choking to death as the collar tightened on his throat, and then the light turned green again. Well, that wasn’t so difficult, but she couldn’t think of anything else to install in the remote.

She leafed through the guidelines, skipping steps left and right until she came to one section that caught her eye.

_STEP FIVE—Getting the Most Out of Your Slave:_

_1\. You must enact strong punishments for bad behavior._

_2\. You do not have to reward good behavior under any circumstances._

_3\. You do not have to take care of your slave in any way, but it is prudent that you do because they last longer then._

_4\. You may use your slave in any way you desire—sex, hard labor, household chores, childbearing—even if the slave you have purchased does not fit that category._

_5\. Bottom line, anything goes. They may not be treated like humans, but they are human and will die from the normal causes._

_Please, enjoy!_

That was the end of the guidelines and Maka set them aside with a relieved sigh. She rolled over so that he head was resting on her pillow and peered up at the purple day outside the window again. It was dark and she was so exhausted. She took a bottle of melatonin, an herbal sleep aid, and some Tylenol PM from her nightstand and dumped a few of each out in her hand. She took them with a sip of water, buried herself beneath the covers, and tried to sleep.

As usual, even loaded with aids, she couldn’t sleep. 

In-fucking-somnia!

Annoyed, she grabbed her mother’s cryptic postcard and glared at the smeared red script and the little black skull in the corner. Maka, please, listen to me. You need to get him from the slave warehouse. He needs your help and you're going to need him to die for you in the future. Please, save him now and save yourself later. So she had bought Eater, saved him from being eaten alive, what now? 

Maka tossed the postcard across the room, kicked all the paperwork off the bed, heard the shackles clank on the floor and the remote thud somewhere, and shoved her head under her pillow. “Sleep,” she told herself and began chanting it over and over. “Sleep, Maka, just sleep. Sleep, Maka, sleep, sleep…!” Finally, the black hands reached up through the abyss, grabbed her, and sucked her away into the realm of nightmares that she was so accustomed to.

…

Eater finished the dishes, set them in the drying rack, and dried his hands on his pants. For a moment, he nervously scanned the room, wondering if his master was lurking around the corner, watching him for anything he might do wrong, but he didn’t feel any eyes on him. Shivering, Eater knelt and pressed himself against the fridge, soaking up the heat coming from beneath it. Shuddering, he put his hands against the grate and watched the blue-tinged skin slowly begin to turn pink and flush with blood again. 

He wrapped his arms around himself and snuggled down against the heat, preparing to get the first real rest he had had in almost a week, but he couldn’t convince himself to sleep. Strange, he had slept in far more dangerous and colder places. He was warm, safe, and fed so why was he so uncomfortable? Eater sat up and put his back against the fridge, scanning the room with his blood-red eyes. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

Eater drew his legs up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and rested his face in the crook of his arms. A bruise on his jaw sent a spike of pain through his face, but he didn’t adjust his position. He tried to convince himself to sleep but was unable to. Eyes wide open, he watched as the strange purple dawn outside the window only grew darker. The birds outside twittered anxiously, as if unsure whether it was day or night. 

…

_“Have you found the woman yet?”_

_“Nnnooo.”_

_“Tsk.” The sound was sharp and cold, not quite angry._

_“Ittt’s oookay. We’vvve founnnd sssomething bettter.”_

_“Better than the woman?”_

_“Oh, yyyeeesss.”_

_“What is it?”_

_“Herrr daughterrr…”_

X X X

Am I fooling anyone with Eater? Hehehe! 

(I feel like I’m abusing the use of italics. I’ve been using them a lot in this chapter!) Oh well!

Remember, cannibalism is still wrong! It doesn’t matter how cute the guy (or girl) is!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	3. New Skin for the Storm House

Bragh, I’m sick today. I get to stay home and write all day so that’s good at least.

Man, my high school career is over in about six days… I’m almost terrified! What’s my life going to be like not having to get up and catch the bus and muddle through school every day? It’s so scary—just the thought of college and all that adult stuff! Jeez, I’m such a chicken… but at least I got that out of my system for now… So, all our college people, is it as bad as movies make it look?

 **For chat avec yeux bleu.** I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow so you should all thank him/her for muscling me into posting early with double reviews asking me when I was going to continue. Are you happy now? Oh, and you mentioned that you didn’t have the patience to read an unfinished story, but you’re safe with me. I update almost every day like a crazy person. Ask anyone and they’ll back me up. It’s true!

X X X

Maka Albarn woke with a start just as the sun was sinking down beneath the edge of Death City and the laughing blood-toothed moon was peeking up on the horizon. The weird purple day had given way to a deep dark night with a sky full of clouds. She grabbed her watch out of her nightstand and glanced at the glowing face. It was about six o’clock at night and she was surprised that she had slept so long—at least six hours which was almost a record for an insomniac—but she hadn’t been sleeping all week and it must have finally caught up with her. 

Stretching, she swung her legs out from beneath the covers and put her cold feet on the floor. Her clothes were rumpled from sleep so she quickly stripped, tossed the clothes in the hamper, and redressed in some cotton pajama pants, a light tank top, and thick socks for her freezing feet. Then, she left her bedroom and returned to the kitchen for a snack. She wasn’t quite hungry enough for dinner, but a piece of fruit or an apple would hit the spot.

There was a strange shadow in her dark kitchen, hunkered down beside the fridge, and she suddenly thought of her mother’s cryptic postcards that always spoke of unknown dangers. Was something strange and dangerous in her house?! 

Maka dove for the knife block on the counter, grabbed something out of it, and whirled around brandishing it wildly. There was a small sound, a weak little cry, in the darkness. Maka slammed into the wall, groped for the light switch, and flipped it. Bright golden light flooded the kitchen, momentarily blinding Maka, and she swung whatever she had grabbed from the block again. There was a hollow thwack and another one of those small cries.

Maka blinked, adjusting her eyes to the bright light, and the strange white face of her new slave, Eater, came into focus. He stared desperately up at her with those blood-red eyes. She had the thick knife sharpener—not a dangerous weapon, but painful none the less—slammed against the side of his face and dark fingers of a bruise were already darkening at his cheekbone. She dropped the sharpener with a clatter and jumped backwards from him. How could she have forgotten about him?

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled out. 

With shaking hands, Eater picked up the sharpener and turned it over and over in his hands. Then, he lifted fingers to the damaged side of his face and carefully touched the injury there, but he was completely silent through all of this. Actually, he hadn’t said a word since his desperate plea for Maka to save him back at the warehouse. 

Maka tucked some ash-blonde hair behind her ear and crouched down to be level with him. “Eater,” she began. “That’s such a strange name.”

He put the sharpener on the tile floor and pushed it towards her with one long finger. His hands were hard and dirty, covered in thick calluses, old scars, and new wounds, and strong-looking. There were thick bands of bruises around his wrists to mirror the ones on his ankles. It looked as if someone had tied him down and he had struggled desperately to get away, bruising himself so darkly, but it could have been something as simple as too-tight shackles.

“Did you hear me? It’s a strange name.”

“Y-you—” he hesitated, searching for the right word. ‘May’ made it sound like he was giving her permission and he was a slave with no authority over dirt. ‘Should’ sounded the same, a suggestion with permission. ‘Must’ was incredibly like an order and therefore equally bad. What could he say that wouldn’t get him beaten? “If you wish it, you could change it,” he said finally. 

Maka stared at him until he nervously lowered his face, shadowing his crimson eyes with his silvery bangs. His voice was deep and throaty, beautiful, but gravelly as if he wasn’t used to speaking. Actually, he probably wasn’t. 

She reached out. Her first impulse was to lift his chin so he would meet her eyes, but he shuddered and she pulled her hand back against her chest. “Do you like being called Eater?” she asked finally. 

Slowly, cautiously, he shook his head so that his silver hair feathered against his cheeks like a caress. There was a chance she would continue calling him Eater, especially knowing that he didn’t like it, but it was a chance he was willing to take. 

Maka sat back on her haunches and didn’t say anything more for a long moment. “Is it your real name?” she asked finally.

He shook his head. 

“How’d you get it?” 

His red eyes flashed up at for a split second and then slammed downwards. “I’ve almost been eaten… six times…”

“Six times?” she repeated.

He nodded, wrapped his arms around himself, and shivered.

She looked at the ugly wound on his neck, just above his collar. Someone had bitten him, tearing out a chunk of flesh and devouring it. It didn’t look incredibly fresh—it wasn’t from today at the warehouse. Maka couldn’t imagine how it felt to feel your body being eaten alive around you—pieces of flesh torn off, fingers tearing into skin, teeth biting deeply. It would probably be the slowest and most painful death imaginable. 

“Why?” she asked.

He rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know…”

Well, Maka didn’t know quite what to say to that and she kind of felt stupid for asking him. How was he to know why people wanted to eat him alive? It’s not like he looked delectable or smelled delicious. He was dirty and bloody and, even from here, he smelled rather rank. That reminded her…

“You really need a shower and some clean clothes,” Maka told him and straightened up.

Eater gazed up at her, the chain shining around his neck from his collar. 

She sighed and smoothed her pajamas down against her body. “But I don’t have anything that will fit you,” she said. “We’ll have to go shopping tonight since we have school tomorrow and I can’t have you going around dressed like that.”

Self-consciously, he rubbed his hands over his stomach and shoulders, wincing at whatever he felt beneath the clothing. 

“I have to get changed and then we’ll go,” Maka told him and hustled from the kitchen. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten he existed and attacked him. Honestly, this lack of sleep was turning her brain to mush. She also decided that she needed to give him things to do to keep him out of her way—maybe something simple like making breakfast every morning or doing laundry or just something to keep Eater out from underfoot. 

After changing into jeans and shrugging a jacket on over her tank top, Maka walked back to the kitchen where Eater was patiently waiting with his eyes lowered. She took her shoulder bag off the rack, grabbed her keys, and gestured for him to follow her out of the house. 

The street was bustling with Death City’s nightlife. There were deep pockets of shadows on the streets where the lamps couldn’t reach, making the city eerie and shadowed like a phantom necropolis. The people were just as strange and shadowed, but Maka knew a few faces as they past. Even so, she did not call out them. She flapped her hand at Eater, shouldered her bag, and set off down the street to her favorite store. Eater trailed silently behind her like a long shadow. 

“I was thinking, you need things to do at the house,” Maka began.

“Yes Master.”

She cut her green eyes to him, gauging his face but his expression was blank. “I’d like you to prepare breakfast for me every day by eight o’clock,” she decided as she walked. “If you forget, I’ll send you back. I don’t need anyone useless living with me.”

“Yes Master.”

She didn’t really need to say anything else after that. It was clear he was going to do exactly what she said with no argument. 

Maka and Eater arrived at the thrift store about twenty minutes before it was due to close at seven. Maka smiled and exchanged a quick word with the beautiful blonde woman behind the counter while Eater lingered like a ghost behind her. Then, she had to flap her hand at Eater again because he was like a lost puppy, absently following her and distracted by everything as if he had never seen these things before. She went to a rack of men’s clothing and sifted through the jeans. She began pulling pants out, thrust them into his arms, and flapped her hands at him to go to the rack of shirts. There, she did the same until he had quite a heap of clothing in his arms. She waved at him one final time. 

“Go to the checkout,” Maka said plainly when he desperately waltzed aside, unsure of where to go now.

“Hello, Maka, sweetheart,” the old blonde woman said cheerily. She had a dark patch over one eye and part of a scar peeking out beneath it as if someone had slashed her face. Her blonde hair was wavy and beautiful, like spun gold floss, and her lips were soft rose-pink. Her slender hands were scarred and strong as she began going through the clothing Eater had dumped on the counter before her, sifting and folding. “How have you been, sweetheart?”

“Hi, Miss Mari,” Maka said happily. Miss Mari was an old friend of her mother’s. Unlike her mother, Miss Mari was stable and strong and would never leave Death City. This place was her home though she had no family or children of her own, she was always happy to take care of whatever problems Maka brought to her. On the weekends, she worked in the thrift store, but during the week, she was a teacher at the Academy. “I’m hanging in there. I got another postcard from Mom.”

“Ah,” Miss Mari said and lowered her one good eye. 

Maka stared hard at her second mother-figure. Miss Mari had never turned her face away when Maka mentioned her mother’s cryptic letters. In fact, she had always laughed and tilted her pretty golden tresses back at the mystery of the monthly postcards. This was the first time she had ever looked uncomfortable—no, not uncomfortable. Miss Mari looked afraid at the mention of Maka’s mother’s postcards. Suspiciously, Maka asked, “Miss Mari, what is it?”

Miss Mari only changed the subject, lifting her good eye to Eater. “And who might this be? A new friend of yours, Maka?”

Eater sheepishly stepped back with his hands clenched in his shirt. 

Maka shook her head. “That’s just it. In Mom’s letter, she insisted I go to the slave warehouse and buy ‘him.’ She said I was in danger,” she explained to Miss Mari. 

Miss Mari laughed awkwardly. “Well, you know how your mother can be, Maka. She’s a bit dramatic at times,” she said, but there was still that touch of fear in her face. She looked away from Maka quickly and fixed Eater in place with a winning smile. “Who might you be?”

“He’s my slave,” Maka explained, saving Eater from having to speak. “He’s the one I bought.”

“Eater?” Miss Mari repeated and her blonde brow quirked. “That’s your name?”

He shuddered.

“Yes, it is,” Maka said. Earlier, Eater had told her that it wasn’t his real name and that he didn’t like it, but she didn’t want to talk about her slave any more. She wanted to know why Miss Mari looked nervous when she mentioned her mother’s postcard. “Now, about Mom’s postcard…”

“What about it?” Miss Mari asked and finished ringing up the clothing. She stuffed the clothing into a bag and pushed it to Maka. “You should head home, sweetheart,” she said and glanced out the big wobbly glass windows at the dark night beyond. The moon was covered in blood, grinning down maniacally. “It’s getting dark.”

Maka wanted to snap at her, but Miss Mari was so sweet and sensitive. She would probably cry if Maka yelled at her so she let it go with a heavy sigh. “Okay, yeah. We’re going to head back now,” Maka said heavily. “How much to do I owe you?”

Miss Mari smiled, her one eyes crinkling. “Nothing, sweetheart, just take them.” She turned to face Maka’s slave. “It’s my gift to you, Eater, since those clothes don’t fit you at all.”

Eater’s bruised cheeks tinged pink and he quickly looked away from Miss Mari, shuffling nervously. Maka smiled at his cute discomfort, handed him the bags of clothing, gave Miss Mari one final smile of her own, and thanked the wonderful woman. Then, she flapped her hand at Eater again because he was blankly gazing at Miss Mari with a small secret smile curving his cracked lips, ushered him out the door, and hustled him away down the street in the dark. 

A low fog had settled in over the necropolis while they were in Miss Mari’s thrift store and it was starting to drizzle. The rain was cold and seeped its chill into Maka’s bones. She could only imagine how cold Eater was in his thin cotton clothing that didn’t even fit him right. The yellow laughing face of the moon was disguised behind a veil of white misty clouds. 

Maka grumbled, pulled the hood of her jacket over her head, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Come on, Eater, we’re almost home,” she called back to him. Her voice echoed against the empty city streets. 

Where had everyone gone? 

Shivering in the drizzle, Maka picked up the pace. She was suddenly eager to get home though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she had never been comfortable in the night. Maybe she was afraid of the dark, but that was a stupid and childish excuse. She was an insomniac and therefore, she was used to the dark and the endless night, but tonight, she just didn’t want to be out in it. Eater hurried behind her, his footsteps loud in the silence.

…

_“Isss thhhat heeer?”_

_“Be quiet.”_

_“Cannn we ggget herrr nooow?”_

_“Be quiet.”_

_“Bbbut, that’sss the wommman’s daughterrr.”_

_“Be quiet.”_

_“Wwwhat about the bbboy?”_

_“Be quiet.”_

_“I wannnt ttto ggget herrr nooow.”_

_“Be quiet.”_

_There was a long low growl in the darkness._

_“Be quiet.”_

…

Maka unlocked her front door, ushered Eater inside, slammed it, and locked it behind them. For some reason, her heart was pounding. She felt as if she had just narrowly escaped something deadly and tragic, but she told herself it was just nerves from her mother’s cryptic postcard and from having Eater around when she was used to living alone. 

“I want you to shower and get dressed,” Maka said to Eater and rubbed her face with her hands. “You smell something awful, like death warmed over. And, remember, make breakfast tomorrow by eight o’clock or you’re going back to the warehouse.”

“Yes Master.” Eater lowered his face, surely thinking of what awaited him if he messed up and was returned. Eaten alive…

“Those are your clothes now so throw out those things you’re wearing now and put on that new stuff we got from Miss Mari.”

“Yes Master.”

Maka scooped her laptop off the couch and marched off to her room. She had managed to sleep earlier so she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. She may as well embrace it. She began working on some poems and listened to the rush of running water as Eater showered across the hall. She heard him shuffling around the house for ten minutes after that as he discarded the slave garb and found a place to set down the clothes Miss Mari had given them. Then, the house was silent save the tap-tapping of her fingers on the keyboard.

Outside, it began to rain in harsh slanting sheets that pounded against the windows like fettered fingers begging entrance into the house. Thunder and lightning crashed in the distance, lighting up the weird purple-black sky, but the storm barely lasted until midnight. All the while, Maka watched it out her bedroom window until everything was quiet again. The storm was over.

X X X

Haha! I fooled you all! I bet you all thought Maka and Eater were going to get attacked already! Fooled you!

(These chapters are coming out so long! What the heck?)

Oh, and to everyone who is waiting for Eater’s name to change—CHILL OUT, people! I’m getting there as soon as I decide how I want to go about it. I have two options that I really like and I just CAN’T CHOOSE! (I know at least four of you will offer to let me bounce idea off you and I love that, but I’ve got it. Depending on how everything plays out depends on how and when I’m going to get to it. Thank you though!)

Questions, comments, concerns?


	4. Postcard Obvious Failures

I’m going to throw myself off. I’ve written four chapters, but only posted two because… I don’t know. I just didn’t want to post! I know I’m going to forget what’s posted and what’s not and mis-respond to someone’s review! Watch out for it because I’m an oaf. Maybe I’ll just post it all and save myself some humiliation! Good plan, good plan!

X X X

Being an insomniac, Maka Albarn was still awake when Eater knocked lightly on her door at eight o’clock on the dot. He came in bearing a tray of scrambled eggs, toast buttered to perfection, and a tall glass of orange juice. Nervously, he scooted into her bedroom and set the tray down on her nightstand amid her bottles of sleep aids. His silver hair shadowed his face, cast his blood-red eyes in shadows, and the bruises on his face looked like the Grim Reaper’s hands clutching at his skull. Poor boy, Maka thought and lowered the books he had been reading to look at him.

“I-I hope it’s to your liking,” Eater whispered and nervously wrung his scarred hands. 

Maka saw the pleading expression in his eyes, the desperate fear on his face and in his bloody eyes, and offered him a weak comforting smile. She plucked a piece of toast from the tray and bit into it with a small murmured, “Yum.”

He let his breath out in a rush and she watched his chapped lips curve with relief.

“I’m not going to send you back if you don’t cook well,” she said because he looked about to collapse in relief. “Everyone has a bad recipe or a mess-up now and again. I’m only going to send you back if you forget to cook breakfast.”

“R-really?” he whispered.

She nodded and set the piece of toast back on the tray. “You eat it. I’m not really hungry.”

“B-but—”

“I’m just not hungry. You did fine. It’s perfect,” Maka told him. Then, picked up the tray, put it into his hands, and pushed him from her bedroom. When she couldn’t sleep, she often didn’t feel like eating and she hadn’t slept a wink last night. 

Yawning, Maka stretched her arms high over her head and groaned in bliss as her shoulders and elbows cracked. Then, she began going about her day as she always did. She didn’t have a required uniform for school, but she chose to follow some school-related guidelines for her chosen outfit. She normally wore a pleated skirt, white blouse, and loosened tie that matched her skirt. It was still cool and drizzly outside so she put on a light sweater over her blouse. 

She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, combed her hair back into pigtails, and scrubbed her tired face. The dark bags under her eyes were looking worse and she knew her father would ask her about them unless she could avoid him. The chances of that were slim so she put some beige cover-up on the dark circles, pinched her pale cheeks to put some color in them, and put away the makeup. 

Eater was waiting in the kitchen, washing the dishes he had used and setting them out on the drying rack. Maka decided that he had been a good choice. He was almost as self-sufficient as she was, if not significantly more cautious and fearful. She stared at him while he worked. The new clothes fit him perfectly. The shirt he had chosen from the bag was a deep crimson to match his eyes. It molded to the bones of his shoulders, the curve of his ribcage, and pressed against the flat of his stomach. The jeans hugged the flat curve of his ass, lay tightly across his pressing hips, and covered his battered ankles. He still didn’t have shoes—she had completely forgotten. Even so, he had a nice body. Though twig-thin, his body was well-defined and lightly muscled and rather lovely. 

Maka pulled her eyes away from him and turned sharply away to get her dark trench-style jacket off the rack. 

She couldn’t think like that. He wasn’t human—he was a slave.

“Are you almost ready?” she asked Eater. “We’re going to be late.”

Immediately, he dried his hands on his jeans and shoved them into his pockets. “Very sorry, Master,” he said quickly and walked over to her. The chains attached to his collar clinked and rattled and Maka realized that she had forgotten to take them off of him last night. He stopped in front of her and wrung his ugly scarred hands. 

Then, they both looked down at his dirty bare feet.

“I completely forgot about shoes,” Maka said by way of explanation. “We’ll have to go shopping for some after school. You’ll just have to tough it out for today.”

“Yes Master,” Eater said softly.

Maka shooed him out the door onto the damp street, grabbed an umbrella as an afterthought, and locked up behind them. Since it was only drizzling, they didn’t need the umbrella right now and Maka handed it to Eater to carry under his arm. His bare feet slapped on the concrete sidewalk as he trailed a safe three steps behind her. 

The Academy loomed above them like a great castle on the highest street of Death City. Its bright red turrets stabbed into the sky like blood-stained teeth, long white candles jut out and burned brightly in the drizzly grey day, and the entire structure was perfectly symmetrical and beautiful in its ancient red, black, and white color scheme. Considering the headmaster, Lord Death, no one would have been surprised to find that the Academy was secretly armed to the teeth for some apocalypse. Lord Death was just that kind of person—prepared for anything, strong, powerful, and greatly respected—he was a fantastic headmaster. 

Maka and Eater began to slog up the countless steps and Maka heard a breath of awe escape him. She smiled and waved to encourage him to keep walking. She knew how he felt. She remembered that face from the first time she had laid eyes on the Academy. It was a truly magnificent school.

…

_“Wwwhat abbbout the woooman?”_

_“No.”_

_“Cannn we gettt herrr yyyet?”_

_“No.”_

_“Wwwhy?”_

_“Because.”_

_“Wwwhat arrre we waittting fffor?”_

_“The right moment.”_

_“Wwwhy?”_

_“Because.”_

_“Thhhe bbboss?”_

_“Be quiet.”_

…

Maka pushed open the doors to the Academy’s indoor courtyard and squeezed through the regular hustle-and-bustle of students in the morning. There was the usual rush of homework doing, homework copying, drama and crying, boyfriend-girlfriend-best-friend fights, studying, and all the other shit that went with being in high school. Eater was almost swallowed up by the crowd of students, too nervous to just push his way through, and Maka had to wait for him to join her. He was panting and pale when he finally reached her side and she wondered if he was thinking of the last crowd he had been trapped in—about to be eaten alive.

“It’s okay, Eater,” she said kindly. “No one here is going to…”

His crimson eyes met her green ones and he gave her a small weak smile and a slight nod. Then, he staggered through the crowd of noisy students and stopped beside her. He clutched the umbrella nervously to his chest with his scarred hands and Maka stared at the circles of bruises on his wrists.

“MAKA!” Someone shouted across the courtyard. 

A few students went silent and ducked their heads as if hiding from something disastrous. Most of them evacuated the courtyard to do homework or fight somewhere else. Only a few people with earphones remained behind.

“Oh boy,” Maka murmured. “It’s a little early for this.”

Eater nervously lifted his eyes, scanning the crowd for whatever was coming. “W-what is it?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s—”

“MAKA!” A lot of black and white grabbed her up with both thick arms, lifted her into the air, and swung her around like a baton. She caught the blur of soft violet and then of Eater’s startled white face before she was dizzily put back on her feet. 

“It’s Ragnarok,” Maka finished and brushed at her clothes even though they weren’t rumpled. 

Eater gazed nervously up into the face before him. Maka’s friend Ragnarok was frighteningly tall, at least six foot eight inches in height, so that he towered over everyone and even several inanimate objects. He was by no means handsome. His face was white-pale like paper so that he looked dead. His hair was deep black and greasy. He had thin chapped pink lips, a short stubby nose, and a square jaw. An ‘X’ of white bandages circled his head and crossed over the bridge of his nose. This completed his unrealistic face. He looked like some sort of monster that had been thrown together out of left over parts.

Behind Ragnarok’s imposing body, cowering, was a young slave. Eater couldn’t immediately tell the gender of the person because the face was like that of a porcelain doll—perfect and beautiful and the color of fresh cream—and the lavender hair was curled in soft wisps around that hauntingly lovely face. The slave was wearing a black dress that hugged the figure nicely but didn’t reveal any feminine features such as breasts or rounded hips. 

“Hi Chrona,” Maka said to the beautiful little slave and gave a little finger-wave. 

Chrona? Not even the name gave away this person’s gender.

Maka turned to Eater and whispered, “Him. Chrona is a boy.”

Eater must have looked shocked because Ragnarok barked a deep laugh and slung his heavy arm around Chrona’s twig-thin shoulders. “You here that Chrona. You’re so beautiful that no one can tell if you’re a guy or a girl.”

Chrona’s pale face turned red. “Please, don’t say that…”

Ragnarok grabbed Chrona’s face in his thick strong fingers and squished his cheeks meanly. “Be quiet,” he said coldly. “Say ‘thank you’ for my lovely compliment.”

Chrona whimpered, purplish eyes filling with tears. “Thank you, Master,” he said softly.

“That’s better,” Ragnarok snapped and released Chrona’s face. There were dark bruises where his fingers had been and Eater threw his gaze to the ground.

“Ragnarok, come on,” Maka said and hardly batted an eyelash as Ragnarok put Chrona in a headlock and shoved his thick fingers through the soft lavender tresses, yanking out strand after strand like flower petals. “We’re going to be late for class if you don’t knock it off.”

Maka used to try to stop Ragnarok when he beat up on Chrona, but now she was just used to it. She had come to realize that Ragnarok would always be mean to poor Chrona. Even when he fed the poor boy at lunch, Ragnarok would still eat most of Chrona’s food. He was always hitting and pinching and tormenting Chrona on at least an hourly basis and Chrona was always covered in bruises from Ragnarok’s big hands. Once, Maka had caught Ragnarok drowning Chrona in the toilet. And that was just what she saw at school or at their house. She had no idea what Ragnarok did to Chrona behind closed doors, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know why Chrona was always wearing dresses. Maka used to try to intervene, but she found it was hopeless. Chrona had confessed that when she tried to stop Ragnarok, he only beat Chrona harder when they were out of Maka’s sight. After learning that, Maka stopped.

“Ragnarok, come on,” Maka repeated and plucked at his fat fingers buried in Chrona’s hair. “We’re going to be late.”

“Nuh-uh,” Ragnarok said firmly. “No way! I’m not going anywhere until you introduce us to your new thing.”

Maka stepped back, feeling of bubble of protectiveness welling up in her chest. She didn’t want Ragnarok beating up on her poor Eater the way he abused sweet Chrona. She took a step backwards and her shoulder knocked into Eater’s chest. She heard him whimper and felt the crags of his bones beneath the flesh. Eater took a quick step back to compensate for their closeness. 

“This is Eater,” Maka said finally because Chrona’s shadowed eyes were wide and desperate as Ragnarok dug deeper into his soft face. “I just bought him yesterday.” 

Ragnarok let go of Chrona so that the poor boy gasped in relief and put his pale bandaged face real close to Eater’s. His red tongue snaked out and licked his lips. “Delectable choice, Maka,” he said and reached out to touch Eater.

The battered boy shrank back. He didn’t like the way Ragnarok was looking at him and licking his lips. He didn’t like the use of the word ‘delectable’ after almost being eaten alive yesterday. Desperately, Eater cut his crimson eyes to Maka, but she was already halfway to his rescue.

“Ragnarok, back off. He’s totally mine,” Maka said and put her hand on Eater’s shoulder. She said it in such a way that it left no room for argument yet it didn’t seem like a threat or even a staked-claim over Eater. Then, just to complete the strange statement, she grinned up at Ragnarok. “Come on! Ragnarok, class now!”

“Okay, okay,” the giant man relented. “Chrona! Let’s go!”

“Y-yes Master,” Chrona forced out quickly. 

Maka and Ragnarok took the lead and Chrona and Eater fell into step behind them. Maka started a light chatter, monopolizing the conversation o keep Ragnarok from asking her anything about Eater and so she wouldn’t accidentally say anything about how he treated Chrona. She laughed and smiled and giggled, and it was all fake—a show she put on for Ragnarok everyday so he wouldn’t know how she really felt about what was going on between him and Chrona. She always worried how anything she said or did would affect Ragnarok’s treatment of Chrona. She wanted to help, but there was no way she could. So, Maka put on her ruse each day so she could be close to and keep an eye on poor Chrona.

“You should be happy,” Chrona whispered to Eater as they walked.

“Why?” he whispered back.

“Because… Miss Maka is so nice…” Chrona continued and lowered his pale violet eyes. “I wish so much that she was my master…”

Eater glanced at Chrona, at the dark bruises staining his face, at the dress he was forced to wear, and shivered. What kind of terrors did Chrona go through on a daily basis? He wondered, but he really didn’t want to know. He felt that he wouldn’t like the answer. Instead, he lifted his eyes to Maka’s back and allowed himself a small smile. 

“Thank you,” he said to Chrona. 

Then, the four of them were in the classroom and the day quickly rushed away from anyone’s control, but school was like that and it was nothing out of the ordinary. The students allowed themselves to be swept along and the slaves followed hopelessly in their wake. 

…

_“Hhhow abouttt nowww?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_“Wwwhy nnnot?”_

_“Because.”_

_“Wwwhen cannn we gettt the girlll?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_“Wwwhat about thhhe woooman?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_“Wwwhen?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_A low growl crackled through the darkness._

_“Not yet. We have to wait for the right moment. The woman has done something to the girl. She doesn’t sleep at night—a freaking insomniac—and we can’t get to her the usual way—she doesn’t remember any of her nightmares. The girl is just out of reach at the moment, but she will become available to us soon.”_

_“Wwwhat about the woooman?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_“Wwwhen?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_“Wwwhen do we gettt the girrrl?”_

_“Not yet.”_

_Another deep growl of impatience and rage._

_“Just wait. It won’t be long now.”_

_Soft mean laughter flowed out like music._

…

Kami Albarn pressed her bare back against the cold damp stone wall, panting for breath from the run and disguising herself in the pocket of deep shadows. Even though it was midday, it was dark in Death City and it was all because of the weather. She hated this kind of weather—it was just miserable. The cold drizzle had seeped into her bones and it was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering together like the bones of a swaying skeleton. 

How could she have been so stupid?! Stupid enough to send her precious Maka postcards of all things? Postcards! Which could be read by anyone at anytime anywhere! And she sent all her precious warnings through postcards! It was all her fault they had discovered Maka. Because they had found one of her postcards and followed it back to Maka’s home in her ex-husband’s nice little house. Hell, the postcards had been practically begging to be intercepted and read. 

And they had been!

And Kami hadn’t even noticed. She had even sent the message telling Maka to run down to the slave warehouse and buy ‘him’ in a postcard. They knew every single move Kami was making, probably even before Maka did. Maka probably hadn’t even gotten to ‘him’ in time. They had probably already found, bought, and killed that poor boy. It was hopeless, but Kami wasn’t going to give up even if it seemed completely lost. 

She had to do something! 

She wouldn’t let them kill her daughter!

“Maka,” Kami whispered and clutched her hands to her breast. Her heartbeat was racing. “Don’t worry. I’m going to do everything I can to help you. Please, don’t let me be too late.”

…

_“I smmmell the woooman.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Isss ittt timmme yyyet?”_

_White teeth shone in the darkness. “We’ll split up. You go after the woman and I’ll wait here for the girl.”_

_“Cccan I—?”_

_“No! We need her alive!”_

_“Finnne.”_

…

Overhead, the flaming sun was fighting off sleep and drooling, mouth opened in a wide yawn to show rows of square white teeth. Maka glanced out the window and felt a pang of envy for the sleeping sun. She wished she could sleep so easily, even hanging in the sky. Beside her, Eater was kneeling at her feet, picking at the calluses and scabs on his ugly hands. Ragnarok was on her other side, beating on poor Chrona even in the middle of class. Chrona was emitting small cries of pain and pleas for mercy as Ragnarok pushed his fat fingers into Chrona’s mouth and yanked his violet tresses. It was still drizzling. The day was grey and disgusting and somehow incredibly… foreboding. Something bad was going to happen!

X X X

I looked everywhere on the planet for a picture of Maka’s mother and I did figure out that her name is Kami and that she looks just like Maka, but that was all I got. I think this woman doesn’t exist or is dead or something because no one knows what she actually looks like… How terribly inconvenient, but I guess that means I get to write her however I want. Yay!

Once again, does everyone feel sorry for Chrona? Poor kid… I know Chrona’s genderless, but I made him a boy for simplicities sake. Anyone who wanted him to be a girl—just deal with it. Anyone who wanted him to remain genderless—deal with it. He’s a dude now—deal with it. Okay!

Another mega-long chapter completed!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	5. Attack in the Rain!

This is a short chapter, but I had a lot of ground to cover and I had to cut it off at a good place so deal with it! Don’t be like Chrona! “Oh, I don’t know how to deal with it!”

X X X

Maka waved goodbye to Ragnarok and winced as he punched Chrona in the back of the head. Chrona crashed down onto the pavement on his face, crying out like a small beaten animal. When the poor beautiful violet-haired boy got back to his feet, his face was streaked with tears and blood and there was a large patch of missing flesh on his cheek. Maka rolled her fingers into tight fists and bit her lip. She wished there was something she could do, anything to help Chrona, but there was nothing. Ragnarok could treat Chrona however he wanted, even outright kill him. Chrona was only a slave. Maka doubted anyone but her even cared about Chrona.

Distracted by her mental rant, she hadn’t even noticed the weather until Eater shivered in the drizzle and she heard his teeth chattering. Maka quickly put up the umbrella and beckoned him closer. When he finally stepped beneath the shelter of the umbrella with her, she shivered at the heat just radiating off his body. He was so warm, almost feverish, so blissfully impossibly warm! She almost sighed in pleasure, but caught herself and stifled it. 

As they walked, almost unconsciously, Eater scooted away from her and back out into the rain.

“You’re going to get soaked,” Maka said to him gingerly. “Come back under here.”

He stepped beneath the umbrella again, but it wasn’t long before he had migrated back into the rain.

With a heavy sigh, Maka reached out, put her arm around his narrow waist, and pulled him flush against her side. His body was just so warm, she relished being close to him and soaking him up. He was almost a full head taller than her, but his silvery tresses were just long enough to tickle the top of her exposed ear. She suddenly had the urge to put her head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat, but she ignored it. He was a slave and she was self-sufficient, remember?

“Listen, Eater,” she began and balanced the umbrella on her shoulder. “Are you… nervous because of what you saw today?”

He shivered and she tightened her arm around his hips.

“Are you afraid because you saw how Ragnarok treats Chrona?” she explained and glanced up into his face from the corner of her eyes. “Do you think I’m that kind of person?”

Surprisingly, he lifted his crimson eyes and met her gaze. “No,” he confessed suddenly and then pressed his ugly hands to his mouth as if frightened by his words.

Surprised, Maka pulled them to a halt on the road and stared at him, still holding his waist tightly against her side. “Really?”

He nodded, caught a strand of silver hair between his fingers, and twisted it. “R-really…”

“What would make you think that?” Maka asked and she was genuinely confused. She hadn’t really given Eater any real reason to trust her. Sure, she had fed him and she hadn’t beaten him and he had slept in the house last night. She knew most masters, like Ragnarok, starved and beat their slaves, but she was just being a nice human being. 

His face went paler and he tried to pull away from her grip around his waist. “A-am I wrong?”

“No, no!” Maka said quickly and dug her fingers into his hips to keep him against her. His warm hard body was like a stone statue. “No, you’re completely correct. I am a nice person and I have no real intention of hurting you. I just… I haven’t given you any reason to trust me.”

He hesitated and finally sputtered out, “Chrona t-told me.”

“Chrona told you what?”

“T-that you were a n-nice person and that I was lucky to have y-you. He told me he wished you were his m-master,” Eater confessed. 

“Chrona said that,” Maka whispered, voice full of disbelief and horror. She lowered her emerald eyes, fighting back the knot in her throat. God, she wished there was something—anything—she could do to help Chrona. “God, poor Chrona,” she murmured.

“Y-you feel sorry for him?” Eater asked nervously. She felt his hands on her back, softly touching the knobs of her spine. He seemed unsure of what to do with his hands but needed to do something with them.

“Of course,” Maka said softly. “Do you see how skinny he is? Ragnarok hardly feeds him anything and he beats poor Chrona so much!” She rolled her small hands into fists and tightened her grip on the handle of the umbrella. “What person in their right mind wouldn’t feel sorry for Chrona?!”

“But… he’s just a slave… just like me…”

Maka looked quickly up into Eater’s face, her heart racing. She gazed at his poor damaged body, his ugly scarred hands, his moon-colored hair, his deep blood-red eyes… He was strange and beautiful and she didn’t want him to hurt anymore or even be afraid. He was biting his chapped lips so that a sliver of blood ran down his chin. “Don’t do that,” she whispered and lifted her hand to his face. She wiped away the blood with her thumb, but he flinched under her touch. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she murmured gently.

“I-I know,” he forced out and pulled away from her despite himself. “Your hands are cold.”

Maka smiled gingerly and lowered her hands back to her sides where they belonged. His blood was still smeared on her thumb. “I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. Now, come on, Eater. We need to get you some shoes. I’m sure your feet are freezing,” she said cheerfully.

“M-Master, I’d like to tell you my—”

Suddenly, there was the shattering sound of breaking glass behind them. Maka whirled around and her heart was suddenly in her throat. Something was wrong! This was the wrong thing she had felt in her bones since yesterday morning when she dragged herself out of bed. Shards of glass were scattered across the sidewalk like pieces of broken starlight, like Eater’s strange silver hair. Standing in the middle of the mess was a man with a big jagged knife. 

Maka took a step back, fear catching in her throat. 

Beside her, Eater was stone-still and he looked slightly confused. “Master, what’s going on?”

The man with the knife had launched himself through the window of the warehouse behind him and the broken window was like a yawning mouth to hell. He stepped out of the ring of broken glass, nonchalantly swinging that big knife in his large hands. His flesh was like polished ebony, jet black and shiny with grease. The man grinned, lips pulling back to reveal a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth that were all toppled over one another like felled dominos. He had a perfectly hairless round head not unlike a shiny black bowling ball save a long pale scar bisecting the middle of his skull and going down his forehead. He took another step towards them and lifted the knife to his mouth, licking the long gleaming blade lewdly. 

“It’s finally time,” he said. His voice was surprisingly gentle and soft, commanding though. “You’ve been just out of our reach for almost a month now, girl. You can thank your mother for that on both counts.”

“My mother?” Maka whispered. She could feel herself trembling.

“Oh yes. She led us right to you—the stupid woman—but she also did something to you that makes you not sleep at night and forget your nightmares. Therefore, we’ve had to take the more direct route in getting to you.” He cut his dark black eyes to Eater. “Hmm, is that him? Not what I was expecting, but no matter. I’m going to kill you both anyway!”

With an inhuman scream, he flew at them faster than the eye could follow. His face was inches from Maka’s and he was glaring right into her very soul. Desperately, she stumbled back and fell over her own long legs. Crashing backwards on her elbows and skinning them, she was like a helpless lamb for slaughter before him. Terrified, she looked up into his dark face and felt the first touch of true paralyzing fear. He lifted that jagged knife so it caught the moonlight like a half-realized smile.

“No!” she whispered.

The knife arched down on her.

…

“Hhhello, Kamiii,” the tall twig-thin figure hissed from the pocket of shadows and finally stepped out into sight. As usual, the wrong syllables of the words he spoke were drawn out like the hissing of some hideous creature.

Kami Albarn bit back on her fear and put on a brave face that her daughter could be proud of. “Hello Nero, I see your speech is just as annoying as I remember it. Speech therapy not going well for you?” she asked boldly.

“Yooou weeere alwaysss suchhh a funnny creattture, Kamiii,” Nero snarled. The wrinkled edges of his ugly face pulled up so that the flesh looked like it was going to be tucked behind each of the man’s pointed ears. His face looked like a drawing on parchment that had seen better days. Nero’s face was pale and paper, cracked with endless wrinkles, yellowed in the eyes and teeth, and unspeakably hideous. A black stud was skewered through Nero’s long red tongue and Kami wondered if that was what garbled his speech so. “I wonnnder ifff thhhis will makkke youuu laugggh, stuuupid Kamiii.”

“What was that?”

“Kuro isss clllosing in onnn youuur dauggghter evvven as weee spppeak.”

“Maka! No!” Kami whirled, forgetting all about Nero in fright for her daughter. Kuro was such a big hulking beast of a man—poor Maka didn’t stand a chance and this was all Kami’s fault. Ugh, those stupid postcards!

“Ahhh, Kamiii.” Nero’s cold white hands caught her around the waist and she found herself looking right into his yellowed eyes. “Yooou didnnn’t thinkkk it woullld be thhhat easy dddid you, stuuupid Kamiii?”

“Let me go!” Kami shouted and managed a flying punch in his face.

“Ahhh, Kamiii,” Nero cooed. “Ittt’s nooot thhhat easy. Weee’ve been waittting a lllong timmme for the rrright mmmoment to stealll yooou and nooow ittt’s commme.”

A shrilled scream spilt the air, but it wasn’t Kami’s.

…

The shining silver knife came down like a bird of prey, aimed straight for Maka’s face and throat, and she knew immediately that this was the end of her life. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the end, but it didn’t come right away. 

She got a nice foot in the gut first. 

Then, she heard the deep guttural sound of Eater’s voice snarling, “Don’t you hurt her!”

When she opened her eyes, Eater was between her and the dark-skinned man. The two of them were grappling for the knife, but it looked as if Eater was going to be crushed like a bug by the other man’s sheer size any second. The knife dug into Eater’s arm and a finger of crimson blood ran down over his elbow and seeped into his shirt. Beneath the shirt, Maka could see many of his bite wounds had broken open and were bleeding freely. 

“Eater,” she whispered and stared helplessly up at his bloody back.

Eater and the big man fought over the knife for what felt like an eternity. Then, suddenly, the man yanked it out of his hands, cutting Eater’s palms deeply so that her slave was forced backwards cradling his injured hands against his chest. He was just a mess of blood now, it seemed. 

“I can see I’ll have to kill you first, but that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” 

“I don’t know,” Eater said and gasped for breath. 

The man’s red lips curved in a big sick smile, showing his crooked yellow teeth. “It doesn’t matter. Anyone who stands between me and the girl must be removed!” With that, he lunged at Eater again like some kind of feral animal with that knife as his gleaming fangs. 

Maka knew immediately that something irreversible and terrible was going to happen. “Watch out!” she screamed.

But it was already too late.

Eater was too injured. He was nothing but blood—his bitten half-devoured body, his slashed hands, the bruises on his face, his scars and scabs. He couldn’t move fast enough and the blade bit deep into his body. There was a spectacular arc of bright red life-blood from his body and then he crashed backwards into Maka so that she felt the heat rapidly leaving his body. His body was so light, like that of a small child, and she hugged her arms around him and put her face into his silver-white hair.

“No!” she whispered.

“Now, it’s your turn girl,” the man snarled down at her.

Trembling she put a hand to Eater’s damaged chest and didn’t even hear him. The only thing she really heard was the cannon-loud bang of a gun and the whizz like an angry insect as the bullet flew past her head. The bullet stuck in the wall of the warehouse just behind them in a shower of leaping sparks and the man’s dark head snapped up. 

“Damn,” he said. “Someone has interfered.” Then, he leaped back through the broken window and was gone.

“What on earth is going on here?” the new voice demanded and Maka looked up into the chalk-white face of a boy her own age. Behind him stood two slave girls that looked as if they could have been sisters. All three peered down at Maka curiously and she saw guns dangling from the boy’s hands with twin silver rings on his fingers bearing the insignia of Lord Death. This was Lord Death’s son, Maka realized, but at the moment, she didn’t really care. 

“Call an ambulance!” Maka shrieked and pressed her hands tighter to Eater’s chest. “Please, hurry! He’s dying! Call an ambulance!”

…

_“Dddid yooou gettt the girlll?”_

_“No.”_

_“Whhhy?”_

_“I was interrupted.”_

_“Thattt doooesn’t matter.”_

_“Why?”_

_“I gottt the stuuupid woooman.”_

X X X

Yeah, yeah, I know this was kind of similar to what really happened in Soul Eater, but I want a big scar. A bullet or something else epic wouldn’t have done it. I needed a knife and just a dash of sacrifice. But, don’t misunderstand, Eater wasn’t out to save Maka, not really. He has some ulterior motives.

But, there you have it. Our villains—Nero and Kuro! I’m glad everyone enjoys their speech patterns because the extra letters are a damn pain in the ass to write!!!!!!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	6. Aftershock at Death Hospital: Pt I

I actually wrote this whole chapter at school while everyone else was taking their finals. I’m exempt from all mine for being a smarty pants so I had free-time! Whoot whoot! On the down side, when everyone else is working, I have nothing to do so I get to sit there and stare at the clock or the wall. Boooooring!

Oh, NOTE: Lord Death is the headmaster of the Academy in this story, but I hate writing the word headmaster so I’m sticking with Lord. Okay, all?

X X X

Death Hospital was kind of a tragic and unfortunate name—like the poor Butcherson Funeral Parlor (1) down the road—but at least the name didn’t taint the work within. Death City had one of the best hospitals for almost eight counties. They had a higher survival rate than anyone else around and for that, Maka was grateful. She wasn’t sure she could take it if Eater died because of her—because one of her mother’s enemies had caught up with her—because Maka hadn’t been strong enough or brave enough to stop the bad things from happening.

Beside her, Lord Death’s son was seated patiently with a mug of coffee in a Styrofoam cup cradled in his long-fingered white hands. His slave-girls sat to his left, whispering softly to each other with coffee in their hands too. The smaller girl was wearing Death’s son’s jacket around her shivering shoulders and Maka thought that was strange. Normally, no one but her showed even a lick of kindness towards slaves. (Take, for example, how Ragnarok treated Chrona and no one save Maka ever batted an eyelash when poor Chrona crashed to the ground.)

Yet, Maka had been being cruel to Eater.

Why had she been behaving that way?

Maka put her face in her hands and forced back scalding tears. She sensed that everything was about to come crashing down on her at any moment. She was exhausted, covered in Eater’s life-blood, stressed out because some crazy man had attacked her and it had something to do with her mother. Maka was at her breaking point. A sob worked its way up her clenched throat and was about to explode out in a veritable breakdown when Lord Death’s son spoke.

“We haven’t been properly introduced,” the young man said. “I’m Lord Death’s son—Death the Kid. And these are my,” he hesitated and glanced at the girls. The older one gave him a small nod and he continued, “These are my slaves, Patty and Liz.”

The older sister, Liz, lifted her hand and gave Maka a small winning smile. She had long dirty-blonde hair down to her mid-back and big honest blue eyes that had clearly seen a lot of pain in their time. Her body, though beautifully developed, was hidden behind a heavy white jacket and jeans. Even so, Maka could see the full weight of her pressing breasts and the hint of scars at her wrists and throat. She had been through hell but she was trying to put it behind her, that much was clear.

The smaller girl, Patty, stared hard at Maka for a long moment with her big blue eyes and then said in a burst of happy chatter, “It’s wonderful to meet you. What’s your name?!” Patty’s golden-blonde tresses were cropped short beneath her ears and she was hunched back in Death the Kid’s black jacket so Maka couldn’t make out any healed broken bones or scars. Since there was so much darkness in Liz’s blue eyes, Maka surmised that she had protected Patty from the worst of whatever they had been through together.

“I’m Maka Albarn,” she said, half to Death the Kid and half to Patty. 

Lord Death’s son smiled and his teeth were perfectly straight and white. “Are you a student at my father’s Academy?”

She nodded. 

“I graduated last year, but I still stop by every now and again,” he continued and she knew he was trying to distract her from the thought of whatever was happening to Eater. 

“Listen,” Maka began, “Death the Kid—”

He froze in place as if she had pinched him and let out a squawk. “No, no, no! You mustn’t call me that. It’s such a ridiculous title,” he said and suddenly became a mess of flailing limbs in the chair beside her that it was remarkable that his coffee didn’t spill everywhere. “Please, just call me Kid.”

Despite her situation, Maka’s lips curved in a small smile. “Okay, Kid, then.”

Kid let out a sigh of relief, Patty giggled uproariously, and Liz allowed a small happiness to reach her shadowed eyes. 

Suddenly, Maka couldn’t’ remember what she had been going to say. 

They were all such nice people. At Maka’s cry of _‘Call an ambulance! He’s dying!,’_ Liz had immediately come to Maka’s side when she realized Eater was at death’s door, pressing her hands over Maka’s on his bleeding chest. Patty had stood guard at the broken window, peering into the darkness for sign of the dangerous man’s return. Kid had had to grab Maka and hold her back when the paramedics finally arrived and took Eater from her arms. Then, they had packed her into their car and driven her to the hospital after Eater and were still here with her.

Maka’s eyes welled with tears and she put her face in her hands again, sobbing.

“Oh no, please, don’t cry,” Kid said. “It’s going to be okay.”

The doors to the operating room swung open on silent hinges and a doctor with his white oat splattered with blood stepped through them. He pushed his glasses farther up on his nose and peeled off his bloody gloves as he walked towards Maka, Kid, and the others. “Maka Albarn,” he began and glanced at Kid. “I’m sorry to inform you that—”

“No!” Maka screamed and jumped to her feet. “No! That can’t be true!”

The doctor stepped back, shock reading behind his glasses even caught in the glare of the fluorescent lights. Kid’s already pale face went paler. Liz’s eyes filled with darkness and Patty’s smiled dropped from her pretty face.

“This can’t be happening!” Maka screamed and ran out of the hospital into the freezing rain.

…

“He isn’t really…?” Kid whispered and looked up into Doctor Stein’s face, pleading the old friend of his father’s to say it wasn’t so. Patty dug her fingers into Kid’s arm and Liz quickly pulled her sister back so she wouldn’t hurt their master. “He isn’t, right?”

Dr Stein shook his head slowly, grey hair feathering against his scarred cheeks. “No,” he said finally and fished an empty pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. He peered inside, found nothing, and crushed it in his fist. “He’s alive.”

Kid let out a breath and then whispered, “Why would you say that you’re sorry, then?”

“It is the policy of this hospital,” Dr Stein explained carefully. He took off his glasses, cleaned them on a bloodless patch of his lab coat, and put them back on. “Because most masters want their slaves to die when that amount of damage is inflicted. I would never have said that to someone I knew cared for their slaves.” His eyes flashed beneath his glasses. “Like you, Kid. But I don’t know Maka Albarn. I had to assume that she considers her slave less than human and take the low road.”

Kid inclined his dark head. He understood what Dr Stein was saying, but he didn’t have to like it.

Liz reached around Patty and touched his shoulder. When he met her eyes, she smiled faintly in what might have been thanks.

“Do you think Maka hates her slave and wanted him to die?” Dr Stein asked. “Do you think she did that to him or is her story true?”

Kid rolled his narrow shoulders and repressed a shiver. He knew if Patty saw that he was cold, she would immediately give his jacket back. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “She was distressed, but I suppose she could easily be unhappy that we came along and he wasn’t killed.”

“Ah,” Dr Stein said softly. “But what do you think, Kid? What’s your gut feeling?”

Kid hesitated, gnawing his lip. “I truly think what she says is the truth, at least,” he said finally. “I think that dark man did attack her and hurt her slave, but I can’t say whether or not she’s happy her slave survived. Maybe she misunderstood you and thinks he’s really dead. Maybe she understood you perfectly and is unhappy that he is alive. It could go either way.” He sighed and dragged his hands through his dark hair.

Silence stretched between the four of them for a long moment. The only sound was the regular hustle and bustle of Death Hospital’s nurses, doctors, and patients and the hum of the air conditioner as it pumped out freezing air.

“We should go get her back, shouldn’t we?” Liz whispered, breaking the silence nervously.

Dr Stein glanced out the windows at the dark slanting rain beyond. “I wouldn’t advise it,” he said plainly. “Don’t worry though. I know Maka’s father and I will give him a call. I’m sure Spirit will rush right out there after his daughter and find her quickly enough. So, there is no need for you all to endanger yourselves in this dastardly weather.”

Kid nodded again. “I understand.”

Dr Stein put his big hand on Kid’s shoulder and said softly, “You’re a good kid, Kid, but you can’t go around trying to take on the kindness other people should exhibit. It’s not your burden.”

“I know, but—”

Dr Stein hushed him, but knelt down to hug Patty and Liz in his big arms. He let out a small tired sigh and the two girls put their arms around him. “It’s not your burden, Kid,” he said again and went off in search of a cigarette. The smell of smoke and antiseptic hung in the air even after the doors had swung shut behind him.

…

Maka charged through the rain, uncaring that she was soaked to the bone within seconds. She wasn’t exactly sure what had happened to her umbrella. Had she left it back where the man had attacked them or had she left it in the hospital? She ran blindly on, unsure if she was crying anymore or if that was just the rain streaming down her face. Suddenly, she found herself before the warehouse where Eater had been hurt. The glass was still lying on the sidewalk, but all his blood had been washed away by the pounding rain. 

Exhausted, Maka slipped to her knees in the glass. Immediately, shards dug into her knees and legs and her blood was swept away by the rain as if it didn’t matter. And what did it matter? Eater was dead and it was all her fault!

Eater was dead!

A car pulled up beside her, headlights bright beams through the rain and taillights gleaming like blood on the silvery droplets as that slanted down. For a moment, Maka feared it was the man who attacked her earlier and killed Eater, but then the window slid down and her father stuck his head out.

“Maka,” her father called through the rain. “What are you doing? I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Leave me alone!” Maka sobbed. She grabbed a shard of glass and threw it at the car, but it tinkled off harmlessly. “Just go away! It’s all my fault!”

Spirit put on his hazards, grabbed an umbrella, and got out of the car. He crouched beside Maka, sheltering her with the umbrella so that he could see she was still crying and it wasn’t just the rain. He put his arm around her and hugged her tightly even though her wetness soaked into his suit. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

She sniffled. “It’s my fault… he’s dead, Dad.”

A tinge of fear spike din Spirit, but he forced himself to be calm. “Who, baby?” he asked.

“Eater… I saved him just to have him die anyway…”

“Eater?” Spirit repeated, confused. 

“M-my slave.”

“Baby, when did you buy a slave?”

“Mom sent me a postcard. She told me to go to the warehouse and buy him because he was in danger and that I would need him to die for me later. I never thought that would happen! How could he be dead, Dad?!” she howled in anguish.

Spirit let the umbrella rest on the top of his head and pulled her into a two-armed hug. “Maka, sweetheart, no one is dead.”

“Yes he is! That doctor said that he was sorry! That means Eater’s dead!”

“Maka, you’ve misunderstood. Stein called me and explained what happened. The hospital must always apologize if a slave’s life is saved, just in case the master wanted that slave dead. He had to do it because he didn’t know what kind of person you were,” Spirit explained.

“What kind of person—” Maka sniffled “—would want anyone dead like that?”

“A lot of people, baby. The world is not always a good and caring place,” Spirit told her gently. Then, he looked around and his eye caught the shattered window of the warehouse, yawning like a dark mouth. “Is this where it happened, where you were attacked?”

Maka nodded and wiped her face though it did little good because of her wet sleeve.

“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured and rubbed her back. “Now, can we go to the hospital or do you want to stop at home for some dry clothes?”

“I want to go to the hospital.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Eater won’t be waking up for a while yet Stein said. He lost a lot of blood.”

“I’m sure,” she said firmly and there was determination in her green eyes.

Spirit knew there was no changing her mind so he smiled softly and hugged his kind and beautiful Maka. “You’re such a sweet girl,” he began and she heard that tone in his voice.

“Dad,” she warned and pushed him away. She grabbed the umbrella from him and stood up. “Don’t do it.”

But he did it anyway.

Spirit began to rant in that annoying loving tone of voice. “My Maka’s such a sweetheart! She even cares for slaves! She probably even cares for insects and the air itself!” He spread his arms and grinned, water streaming down his handsome face and plastering his red hair to his skull. “Come give your old man a great hug, Maka, my darling angel.”

Ignoring him, Maka pulled open the passenger side door, got in without a care for the seat she was soaking, turned up the heat, and left her dad standing in the rain.

X X X

(1) Did anyone notice my little allusion? Butcherson Funeral Parlor was where Namine Blackheart’s funeral was in Whisper of the Beast. I’m sure no one noticed because I had to go back and scan every chapter until I found the name. Hehe… There you go, NERD MOMENT! 

Kind of a short chapter, but this was a good place to stop. 

Maka’s dad isn’t as spastic as usual, but it’s hard to write spasms. It’s kind of an anime thing where you can see their faces wigging out. I guess what I have works under pressure. And Stein is a doctor instead of a teacher. I’m creative and I like it that way!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	7. Who is Soul Eater?

Anyone who’s really enjoying this should check out my other Soul Eater story, **Nightmares of Black Blood**. I really like it and I hardly ever like anything that I write.

X X X

Death the Kid, Liz, Patty, and Dr Stein were still waiting in the hospital when Spirit and Maka slogged in, soaked to the skin. Spirit, being friends with Lord Death and at some sort of uneasy truce with Stein over something Maka wasn’t privy to, went immediately over to them and sat down (albeit as far from Stein as humanly possible). Maka wrung out her hair in the doorway and finally gave up on her pigtails. She pulled them out as she walked over to the others and stood, nervously wringing her hands, in front of Stein. 

“Um,” she ventured.

Stein adjusted his glasses. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”

“I understand,” Maka said and then realized the irony of her words when he looked at her curiously. Her cheeks blazed red.

“I assume you want to see you slave,” Stein continued.

“Eater,” she corrected.

He raised a silver brow but didn’t comment. “Yes. I’ll show you to his room,” he said. Then, he stood up, grinned at her father so that he cowered into his seat, and waved a languid hand at Maka. She followed him eagerly, feeling four sets of eyes burning into her back.

“Right here,” Stein said after leading her down a confusing mass of sterile white hallways. “Can you find your way back?”

By now, Maka was completely lost but eager to see Eater so she simply nodded, telling herself she’s figure it out later.

“Alright then,” Stein said and walked off with his hands in his pockets.

Maka hesitated at the door, hand on the cold knob. Then, she shook herself and caught her first glimpse of his blood on her clothing. Immediately, she shoved the door open and stepped into the room. Eater was lying so still in the hospital bed that for a moment, Maka feared this had all been a cruel prank and he really was dead. Then, the pounding of blood in her ears stopped and she could hear the heart monitor beeping steadily in the background and see the slow rise and fall of his bandaged chest. As if pulled by an invisible cord, she went to Eater’s side and carefully took up his bandaged hand in her own. She had hoped it would be as blissfully warm as his body had been, but his skin was cool and clammy.

The floodgates inside Maka broke.

Sobbing, she bent over his cold hand and buried her face in the hollow of his stomach. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault…” Her tears dripped on his flesh and rolled between her fingers. “I’m so sorry! Please, I’m sorry!” She dug her fingers into his hand and continued crying hopelessly. 

God, what if he never woke up?!

“Please, stop that… It hurts…”

Maka jolted upright and saw that Eater’s blood-red eyes were screwed shut in pain. It was then that she realized, she had her face pressed into the wound bisecting his chest and stomach and her fingers digging into the slash in is palm. She was hurting him. She just couldn’t get anything right. Urg—she was such a failure!

“Eater! Please, I’m so sorry!” Maka shouted and tightened her grip on his hand. “Are you okay?”

His eyes found her face and then closed softly. His fingers tightened slightly on her hand. “You’re here,” he whispered.

“Yes! Of course I am!” 

He pressed himself back into the pillows and put his free hand to the long wound on his chest, feeling it beneath the bandages. He winced in pain and retracted his hand, running his fingers through his hair. “Master,” he ventured. “Before this happened… I was going to tell you something… Can I, maybe, tell you now?”

Maka smiled softly and rubbed his hands between her palms. “Yes, of course.”

“I told you Eater wasn’t my real name…” he hesitated and glanced at her face through his snow-white lashes. “My really name is… It’s Soul…”

“Soul Eater,” she whispered.

He nodded slowly. 

“So, does that mean you want me to call you Soul Eater from now on?” she asked and rubbed her tears from his skin.

He shook his head.

“Then why would you…?”

“I’d just like you to call me…” he hesitated and looked up into her face again. “Just Soul,” he whispered and closed his eyes as if afraid to see how she would react.

“I like it,” Maka said after a moment. “Soul, it’s much prettier than Eater.”

His chapped lips curved slightly. Then, he confessed, “I can’t believe I’m still alive.”

Maka squeezed his hand.

He turned his head, silver hair touching his cheeks and falling in his eyes. She lifted her hand, intending to push the hair back, but he flinched before she even touched him and she withdrew her hand. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured and hoped he couldn’t hear the hurt in her voice. “I know you’re afraid. You have every right to be. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through in your life…”

He closed his scarlet eyes and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “This… is the first kind touch I’ve had in years.”

“Years?” Maka repeated.

He nodded slightly and she watched his throat working desperately. “It’s been… seven years since anyone’s touched me like this—without hurting me before or afterwards.” Hs cut his eyes to her face and whispered softly, “You’re not going to hurt me after this, are you?”

Maka shook her head quickly. “No!”

His lips curved again. “I’m glad…”

There was a faint knock on the door and Stein stuck his head in. “Maka, it’s almost midnight. You should probably think about heading home. Your father’s waiting for you,” the doctor said quietly. “Ah, Eater, you’re awake.”

Maka caught Soul’s red eyes and he nodded slightly. “Dr Stein, his name is Soul.”

Stein smiled. “Soul, really now?”

Maka beamed and rubbed Soul’s cold hand. “Do I really have to go?” she asked.

Stein nodded with a sigh. “I know you don’t sleep, but I’m sure Soul does. You can come back tomorrow. He should be okay to go home by then so long as he stays quiet and doesn’t do anything rough with those stitches.”

“But—”

“No buts, Maka.” Stein fixed her in place with a glare. “Two minutes and then you are to leave with your father.” He sucked his head out of the room and closed the door, but Maka could see his dark profile through the small window.

“I guess I really have to go,” Maka said softly.

Soul squeezed her hand. “You should try to sleep.”

“I don’t sleep.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it with a small shake of his head. 

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothing, Master,” Soul murmured.

Maka didn’t push him because she suddenly noticed his pale face was pinched and drawn. She stood up from her place at his beside and slipped her hand from his grip. “I guess I should be going, then, Soul,” she said softly. 

His red eyes shone in the dark and he looked as if he wanted to reach out to her, but didn’t. 

“Sleep well,” Maka said. “You’ll be safe here.”

Stein was waiting in the hallway, looking at his watch. “Ah, Maka, perfect timing. I was just about to come in and drag you out.”

“I came out on my own,” she said.

“I see that. Come on. Your father is waiting for you.”

“What about Kid and those girls?”

“They went home about half an hour ago.”

“Oh.” 

“Were you hoping they were still here?”

“No, not really,” Maka lied because she wasn’t sure why she had wanted to see them again in the first place.

Stein was silent the rest of the walk down the sterile hallways to the waiting room where Maka’s father, Spirit, was patiently waiting for her with her umbrella and his own tucked under one arm and a small dopey smile on his face. 

“Ready to go, Maka?” he asked.

She nodded. “We’ll come back and get Soul tomorrow, right?”

“Of course,” Spirit said. 

“Thank you for everything you’ve done, Dr Stein,” Maka said and bowed low. 

“It was nothing and I’m sorry for our misunderstanding earlier,” Stein said kindly.

Maka bit her lip. “It’s okay. Everything’s alright now,” she said.

“Indeed, it is,” Stein said and watched the two leave the hospital. After a moment, he followed them into the wet but-no-longer-stormy night to smoke a cigarette. In the darkness, he blew a perfect circle and watched as it was borne away on the slight breeze until it wasn’t a circle anymore. “Kami,” he murmured. “What have we gotten ourselves into? It’s not…”

…

“Maka, I’d really like it if you stayed with me tonight,” Spirit began as they drove away from Death Hospital.

“No, Dad. I’m self-sufficient, remember?”

Spirit sighed. “I remember, baby, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help once and a while.”

“I don’t need help.”

“What about that guy?”

Maka froze, but pushed her fear away. “I’ll be okay.”

“Baby, please, be reasonable—”

“I am. I’ll be okay.”

Spirit sighed again and tightened his hands around the steering wheel. The night was pressing in on all sides like black water and every shadow man Spirit jump. He didn’t know how Maka could be so calm! “Please, Maka, I really don’t want you alone in that house right now. At least stay at a friend’s house, please, for me?”

Maka rubbed her face. “Fine. I guess I can stay with Ragnarok. Can we swing by the house? I need some clothes and stuff.”

Spirit sighed in relief. When Maka set her mind to something, it was always impossible to change her mind without violent parental action. He didn’t want to do that to her right now, not with her slave in the hospital and evil men after her and her mother sending her crazy postcards. “Yes, of course,” he said.

It only took Maka a few minutes to gather what she needed while her father waited outside in the car. It might have been his house, but Maka lived there. She stripped out of her soaked clothing, redressed in warm dry pajamas, and stuffed a fresh set of cloths for tomorrow into her satchel. Then, she grabbed her toothbrush and comb and razor and all her other stupid toiletries. She gathered her cell phone and charger from her dresser, her cocktail of sleep aids, the book she was reading and her laptop, and crunched into an apple as she headed for the door. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was. Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed some fresh clothes for Soul for tomorrow. When she got back into the car, she called Ragnarok and he answered just before the machine.

“Hey Maka, what’s shaking?” he said cheerfully and Maka winced as she heard Chrona cry out in the background. 

“Nothing much. Listen, I need a place to stay for the night.”

“Oh no, my friend. Who’s ass am I kicking?” Ragnarok might have been horrible to Chrona, but he was a good friend to Maka. He was always there for her, though thick and thin. 

“No one’s,” Maka said and tried not to smile. It felt good to have someone who cared so much for her. “I got attacked today. They stabbed poor Soul and put him in the hospital. I just don’t want to be alone right now.” She didn’t mention that her father was insisting. Ragnarok would bitch at her if he heard that she had wanted to spend the night alone in her house.

“Soul?” 

“My slave, Eater.”

“Ah, well, he’s just a slave. We can go down and get you a new one tomorrow after school,” Ragnarok said cheerily.

Maka bit her lip to fight back what she wanted to say to Ragnarok. “So, can I come over and spend the night?” she asked. Sometimes, changing the subject was the best thing to do when an unpleasant topic like that came up between them.

“Of course!” Ragnarok shouted into the phone. “We were just about to eat dinner.”

Maka heard Chrona make a pitiful sound. 

“We’re having ribs, baked potatoes, and green beans.”

Chrona whined again in the background. There was a sharp crack and another cry.

“Sounds good,” Maka said softly, wincing for Chrona. “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“Perfect. I’ll unlock the door for you.”

“Thanks Ragnarok.”

“No problem!”

They both hung up at the same time as friends often did. 

“Thank you, Maka,” Spirit said. 

She didn’t answer him, just gazed out the window at the black night beyond. She was thinking of Soul. If he belonged to Ragnarok, he would be dead by now. Maka knew Ragnarok wouldn’t even have taken him to the hospital. Actually, Soul wouldn’t have made it past being eaten alive by his fellow slaves if Ragnarok had been in the warehouse that day. Poor Chrona, so sweet and beautiful and kind and so hurt and tortured and starved.

…

Death the Kid had just stepped out of the shower when there was a light knock on the bathroom door. Since he never denied his girls any moment they might want to talk to him, especially since those moments were few and far in between, he simply wrapped his towel around his hips and called, “Come in.”

Liz was wearing her pajamas—long cotton sleep pants and a tank top—and Kid could see all the old scars on her arms and shoulders and back. The ones on her throat looked like a hideous necklace and he resisted the urge to reach out and embrace her. He had learned by now that she didn’t like to be touched and he understood and respected that. She had only ever allowed him to hold her once—when she sobbed out the story of the child she had lost in his arms late one night when her nightmares woke her up and she came in crying over his kindness.

“Liz, is something wrong?”

She tightened her fingers on the doorframe and he felt her eyes on his exposed flesh. Suddenly self-conscious, he crossed his arms over his bare chest. “I… I wish I had skin like that,” he heard Liz whisper and knew what she meant. She hated her scars. Hell, she hated her entire body.

“Liz?” 

She looked startled, as if she had forgotten he was standing there.

“Is something wrong?”

“N-no, I just wanted to…”

Kid sighed and turned to face the mirror. He scraped his wet hair out of his face, scrutinizing the three lines of snow-white hair that horizontally wrapped around one side of his head, glaring at them because Liz knew he hated them and he didn’t want her to think he was angry with her. He wasn’t irritated with her, per say, more with the people who had made her this way—made her relish ever small kindness like a man in a desert adores water. No one should feel that kindness is that rare! “Liz, we’ve been through this. You don’t have to thank me for being a nice person,” he said softly.

“I know, but…”

“Liz, please,” Kid insisted. “Really, you don’t have to thank me again.”

“What if I… want to?”

Kid sighed and took out a comb.

“Can I do that for you?”

“Liz, you’re not a slave to me. I’m capable of combing my own hair.”

She bit her lip. “I know, but…”

“Liz,” he said, exasperated. “What is this about?”

“What happened today,” she confessed and touched the old wounds at her throat. “I just wanted to know… would you be sad if Patty or I were killed?”

Kid whirled around and the towel almost dropped from his narrow hips. He snatched at it, wrapped it again, and then focused on Liz. “Where do you get these kinds of ideas, Liz?”

She fidgeted, hugging herself tightly. “That girl today, Maka, she ran out screaming when she thought her slave was dead. I just… I wanted to know if you would scream for us,” she whispered and took a step back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

Kid had to touch her. He just had to. He closed the space between them, grasped her shoulders, and pulled her against the moist bare flesh of his chest. Her hands pressed helplessly against him because he was stronger than she was.

“Kid please!”

“No, listen to me, Liz. I care about you and Patty. You know I would miss you,” he said firmly. “I would miss seeing your faces every day. I would miss everything about you, everything between us, everything we’ve been through together. Now, let me ask you something.” Kid pushed her back, but still held her by her scarred shoulders. “Would you miss me?”

Her blue eyes filled with tears. “Yes!” she sobbed and wrapped her arms tightly around him. 

He felt her hot tears on his bare chest and smiled softly as he rested his cheek on the top of her head. This would be the second time she let him hold her and he enjoyed every minute of it because these moments didn’t come often. 

Suddenly, his wet towel dropped from his hips with a splat and Liz tensed in his arms. 

“Um, Kid?”

“I know…” he muttered.

She covered her eyes and ran from the bathroom. Kid silently cursed the stupid towel’s timing. It couldn’t have waited a few more minutes to decide to flash Liz?! Annoyed, he slammed it onto the towel rack and yanked his own pajama pants over his hips with a snort.

…

Maka arrived at Ragnarok’s house nine minutes later. As he had promised, the door was open for her, but Maka locked it as soon as she was inside. She didn’t want that big man with his jagged knife to come into Ragnarok’s house after her. Also, she knew Ragnarok wouldn’t save Chrona and Chrona didn’t deserve to die at all, never the less for Maka. 

“Miss Maka, is that you?” Chrona poked his lavender head around the doorframe. There was a fresh bruise on his cheek and some blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. It looked like Ragnarok had gotten him good.

“Oh Chrona,” Maka whispered. “Your face…”

Nervously, Chrona touched the blackening bruise with his long fingers and then wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I know how to deal with it.”

“But you shouldn’t have to,” Maka whispered. 

Chrona smiled softly. “Thank you, Miss Maka.” Then, his eyes darkened with sorrow and fear. “Master wanted me to show you into the kitchen and to take your bag.”

Maka thought the weight of her satchel would pound poor sweet Chrona into the ground. As it was, it probably weighed more than the poor starving boy, but she handed it over anyway. She didn’t want Ragnarok to hurt Chrona anymore. “Thank you Chrona,” was all she could say, but Chrona smiled happily up at her. Maka saw Soul’s face in Chrona’s beaten one and she suddenly wanted to take her chances with the armed man after her rather than stay here with Ragnarok and tormented Chrona.

But then she stepped into the warm kitchen, bid hello to Ragnarok’s mother who was having her feet scrubbed by another poor beaten slave, felt momentarily ill, and then Ragnarok swept her up in his big arms and hugged her. There was something incredibly comforting about being hugged by someone so much bigger than you. Maka felt as if nothing could touch her in Ragnarok’s arms—not the armed man or pain or grief or even her loopy father or her batty mother. 

She was safe here in his arms.

Then, Maka broke down and really cried. 

That night, having cried herself into an exhausted sleep, she slept safely in Ragnarok’s big bed in a cocoon of his blankets and masculine scent. When she woke up, she couldn’t remember her nightmares at all, just felt the incessant pounding in her heart within the cage of her ribs and was reminded of Soul. She had to get to the hospital and get him!

X X X

There you are. Eater gets his real name now. Soul is so much sweeter sounding.

And we had the addition of Kid, Liz, and Patty. 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	8. Alive, Soul Comes Home Alive

Hmm, I don’t really have anything to say today. Nothing real interesting to report.

X X X

Maka arrived at the hospital as early as she possibly could to pick up Soul. She had called her father, waking him up carelessly, while Ragnarok was still sleeping and was gone before he even woke up. She did leave him a nice long note explaining that she had to go without saying that she only wanted to see Soul. Ragnarok wouldn’t like that and he would take his anger out on Chrona and Maka didn’t want to be the cause of any of Chrona’s pain. Just like she didn’t want to cause Soul any more pain.

Spirit yawned as Maka jumped into the passenger seat with her satchel clutched against her chest. “Baby, it’s so early,” he mumbled.

“I know,” she said softly.

“Can you even get him this early?”

Maka bit her lip. She hadn’t thought of that, but she thought of a plan on the spot. “So long as Dr Stein’s not there, I can pull the ‘he’s my slave’ card and get him out,” she said.

Spirit sighed. “Maka, is that really best?”

She didn’t answer. 

Then, they arrived at the hospital and Maka jumped out with her bag pressed against her side. She hustled into the hospital, marched up to the desk, and asked if Dr Stein was in. When she received a negative, she grinned and said she was here to pick up her slave, Soul. The young nurse nodded and told her to just go to his room and fetch him—no paperwork needed. He was only a slave after all. Maka could slaughter him when she got home and no one would care. 

Maka wandered down the hallway, finally caved and asked for directions, and found Soul’s room on her second try. He was still sleeping, but some color had returned to his face. Silently, Maka slipped to his side and gently brushed some silver tresses out of his face. He groaned in his sleep and shifted beneath her hand, but Maka was happy to feel that his body was radiating warmth again. Blissfully, she pressed her hands to his collarbones and soaked up the warmth of his body. Even though she had spent the night sharing Ragnarok’s bed, Soul was warmer and much more pleasant to the touch.

“Soul,” she whispered even though she felt horrible for waking him up when he was both exhausted and hurt, but she wanted to get him home. 

He groaned again and his eyes fluttered, half-opening and then closing tightly. “Master?” he whispered. 

Maka smiled for him so he would have something nice to see when he woke up, but he flinched when he saw her face. His ugly hands fisted in the white bed sheets and he squirmed as if in intense agony. Then, suddenly he sat bolt upright and there was such a look of terror on his face that it made Maka gasp. He cried out in pain and clasped a hand to his damaged chest and stomach, whimpering as he bent double over himself. 

“What’s wrong?!” Maka asked him.

Soul gasped for a breath, crimson eyes wide with terror as he lifted them to her face. He started to reach out and then snatched his hands back against his chest, hissing in pain. “I… I’m alive,” he whispered. “Everything hurts…”

Maka sat down on the bed beside him and said softly, “What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

He shook his head and hid his face with his unkempt hair. 

“You’re in pain,” she murmured.

“I’m always in pain,” he whispered and lifted a hand to an ugly bite mark on the side of his neck. Even bandaged, Maka felt as if it was burning through the white gauze. Eater—having almost been eaten alive six times. 

“Are you ready to go home?” she asked him. 

He nodded slowly, cautiously, and she rose from the bed. He pulled back the covers, hands knotted and tense. Then, he put his feet on the floor, hesitated, and stood up quickly as if the bed was going to try to grab him back up. He let out a sigh of relief and smoothed his hands over his stomach gingerly. 

“I brought you some fresh clothes,” Maka offered.

“Really?”

She nodded and dug them out of her satchel, holding them out like a fragile gift. 

Soul carefully took the clothes and hugged them against his chest. “Thank you,” he whispered and he did look truly shocked and happy. Something as simple as fresh clothes could put that small timid smile on his face. God, what kind of horrors had he been through?

“You’re welcome,” Maka said softly and smiled tenderly. “You should get dressed. I’ll wait outside for you.”

…

Privacy, Soul thought wonderingly as the door closed behind his new master. She was so strange. She acted as if he was almost… human! As if he actually mattered… He brought the clothes to his face and inhaled, but there was only the scent of the thrift store where they had bought them. Quickly, because he knew masters did not like to be kept waiting, even kind strange one, Soul stripped from his hospital garments. 

He shuddered at the sight of his naked body, whimpering at the memory of everything this husk of meat and bone had suffered and survived through, even just barely. The countless tearing fruit-like bites all over him, the crooked craggy bones of his fingers and arms, his jagged cracked ribs, his scarred bruised ankles and wrists, his broken nose reset carefully by his own hand, his single blackened dead tooth in the back of his mouth from a brutal punch, his whipped back, his ugly callused scarred hands… Soul carefully touched the edge of the new wound that bisected his torso like a fish that had been gutted, touched the tiny span of black stitches that peeked beneath the encasement of white bandages. It hurt bad, even to breathe, and he thought this was the worst he had had so far in his life. Not to say that he couldn’t have worse in the future—that was always an option.

Shivering, he pulled the jeans up over his hips and fastened them. Still, the waist was too big and sagged down beneath his sharp stabbing hips. He painfully worked his way into the t-shirt, trying not to aggravate anything painful, but it was nearly impossible. He shrugged into the heavy hoodie last, relishing the warm weight that enveloped his beaten aching body. Finally, he managed his way into all the clothing and heaved out a breath of relief.

Then, he stepped out of the room to join his strange caring master in the hall. 

She gave him a small smile and asked, “Ready to go?” She was beautiful with honey-colored hair pulled into twin pigtails on either side of her head and deep jade-green eyes that sparkled with mirth and kindness though shadowed by darkness. Her face was pretty and soft with some vestiges of baby fat in her cheeks. Her body was young and just starting to bloom with breasts and curves and all that womanly beauty but she was still lovely in her youth and innocence. If it wasn’t for the dark bruise-like circles beneath her eyes, she would be truly stunning and the perfect woman-child. But the dark circles and darkness in her green eyes spoke of the bad things in her life.

Soul wondered if she could see the bad things from his life written in his face and body too.

Who was he kidding? Of course she could… It was carved right into his skin, his hair, his eyes, his everything. Of course she could see all the damage in and on him!

…

Spirit hadn’t gotten to see Soul Eater yet and he was eagerly staring at the automatic doors of the emergency room where Maka had gone in, waiting eagerly for her and her new slave to come back out. He was so focused on that that it was no large feat for Stein to sneak right up on him, knock on the window, and scare the pants off of Spirit. He jumped so high that he knocked his head on the ceiling of the car and spent a full minute whining in pain before he was able to open the door and get out to talk to the man he had an uneasy truce with.

Stein was the one who had helped Kami change Maka after all and he would never forgive either of them for that—especially when the dark circles from not sleeping were so black on her beautiful pale face that they looked like black eyes.

“Stein,” Spirit said evenly and leaned on the door. “What can I do for you this fine morning?”

Stein glanced up at the overcast sky, hiding the face of the laughing sun, and pushed his glasses farther up on his nose. “I don’t see what’s so fine about it,” he said. Then, he cleared his throat and said flatly, “Maka’s in there picking up her slave, isn’t she?”

“How would you know?”

“I had the nurse on duty call me if Maka showed up bright and early as I expected her to. I was hoping to talk to you, Spirit,” Stein began.

Spirit folded his arms. “I don’t want any part of whatever mess you and my wife created,” he said firmly. 

Stein smiled crookedly. “Ex-wife, Spirit,” he said. 

That was a direct blow to Spirit’s heart. He didn’t like to admit it, to anyone and especially to Stein, but he still loved Kami and he missed her. He was sorry for the stupid things he had done, but Kami’s things had been stupider. They had involved their precious daughter and Spirit could never forgive her for that. 

“Does that really matter,” Spirit said coolly, trying to disguise the fact that Stein had hurt him.

By the smirk on Stein’s face, it was pretty clear he already knew and had been intending to do exactly that.

“What is it you want, Stein?” Spirit asked with a heavy sigh. He didn’t want to play this game with Stein right now. He wanted to meet Soul, maybe have some breakfast, and get Maka home safely. Maybe he’d like her to call him ‘Daddy’ again. His list of desires in life was fearfully short. 

Stein leaned on the car. “You know, that slave she bought—”

“It’s him, right?” Spirit interrupted. 

Stein shook his head. “No—”

“What’s going on?” Maka’s voice interrupted their conversation and Spirit let out a mental sigh of relief. 

Then, he cast his eyes over Maka’s slave, Soul Eater, just Soul. No doubt about it, the kid had been through hell and back, half-torn apart by the system. He was covered in scars just on the flesh Spirit could see—throat and hands and bare feet. His hands had that ugly look of a field-working slave, worked to the bone and a little beyond. There were bruises on his face, one eye still half-occluded with blood from some old blow to the face, and the exposed top of a big fruit-like bite on the side of his slender throat. Aside from the terrible injuries, Spirit supposed the boy was attractive. He had a distinguished face with strong features, big crimson eyes the color of ripe strawberries, a soft mouth, and fine silver tresses that feathered against his cheeks. He was breathing hard, surely from the damaging wound that had put him in the hospital, and Spirit made a mental note to thank Soul for saving Maka’s life.

Maka cleared her throat, “Well?” she demanded and stepped closer to her slave as if protective of him. 

Spirit shook himself, but Stein continued to stare at them regardless.

“Maka, it’s at least three hours before the regular patient check-out time,” Stein said flatly. He took a cigarette from the pack in his lab coat pocket, lit up, inhaled deeply, and blew a perfect smoke ring at Spirit’s head so the other man had to wave his hand about irritably. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Maka bristled. “He’s my slave. I can pick him up and take him home anytime I want,” she snapped.

Beside her, Soul tensed and carefully scratched at the trail of dried blood on his slashed palms. 

Stein teasingly took another drag and obligingly blew his smoke in the direction Spirit was pointing. He didn’t want to second-hand-smoke on Maka, after all. “I suppose that’s true,” he said finally and Maka let out a sigh of relief. 

“Thanks, Dr Stein.”

Soul pulled open the passenger door for his master and she clambered in, jerking her thumb at him through the glass so he’d know to hop in the back. Once both children were in, Spirit turned his face to Stein and hissed, “What were you saying earlier, Stein?”

Overhead, there was a clap of thunder.

“Nothing,” Stein said and began to walk away. “Nothing at all… You should get home. It looks like there’s going to be another storm.”

No sooner had he spoken those words and stepped beneath the awning of the hospital when the skies opened up. There was a long peal of thunder that was almost like mean laughter as Spirit scrambled into his car and pulled the door shut before he got soaked.

“What did you say to Dr Stein, Dad?” Maka asked.

“Nothing,” Spirit said and revved the engine. They pulled away from Death Hospital, leaving it to shrink in the rearview mirror. “Nothing at all.”

A stream of bright lightning split the sky apart like fire.

…

Soul had gone in ahead of her to cautiously explore the house for any sign of big drooling men hiding behind the shower curtain or under the bed or anyplace else sneaky. Now, Maka followed after him. She folded the umbrella up, leaned it beside the door, and waved to her father once they were safely inside the house. Then, she closed and locked the door with a sigh, leaning against the strong barrier between her and the outside world.

It was good to be home.

“Are you hungry, Soul?” Maka asked as she began pulling things out of her overnight satchel. She checked her phone and there was a message from Ragnarok, but she ignored it. She had plugged in her laptop and booted it up before Soul finally answered her.

“No, Master,” he murmured.

“Are you sure? You missed dinner last night and it’s about time for breakfast.”

“I’m sure, Master,” Soul said softly and splayed his fingers on his damaged abdomen. 

Maka sighed and tossed yesterday’s rain-stiff blood-stained clothes into the hamper. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know,” she murmured. “I’m not going to, you know,” she hesitated, “starve you or hurt you just because you admit you’re hungry.”

Soul shuffled his feet, sheepishly lowering his eyes. “Really?” he whispered.

Maka nodded and laid her book on the coffee table. “So, are you hungry, Soul?”

This time, he lifted his crimson eyes to her face, met her gaze, and slowly nodded. “Yes, Master, breakfast would be very… nice,” he murmured and bit the bloody corner of his mouth. 

“Are you in pain?”

He hesitated and then confessed, “Yes.”

Maka opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off carefully.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’m always in pain. I’m used to it.”

Maka was reminded immediately of Chrona, specifically how Chrona said he ‘knew how to deal with’ being in pain. These two had been hurt so much and it made her sick to her stomach. But, there was really nothing she could do for either of them right now. There was never anything she could do to help Chrona and she was already doing her bit to help Soul. She wasn’t hurting him or starving him or beating him. She was simply doing the best she could under the circumstances… the crazy circumstances. What was she doing anyhow? She had taken her mother’s crazy postcard seriously for the first time ever and run out to buy a slave. Then, they had been attacked. 

Life was definitely not at its peak at the moment.

She went into the kitchen and stuck her head in the fridge to see if anything good had materialized overnight while she was at Ragnarok’s. Nothing had. So she pulled some ground beef out of the freezer to defrost for dinner—meatloaf would be nice. Then, she pulled out two packets of Ramen noodles, dumped them into a bowl, covered them with water, and popped them into the microwave. In three minutes, breakfast was served.

Maka passed the bowl to Soul and murmured, “I’m not hungry. I’m going to my room to watch TV or something.”

“I-is this okay?” Soul asked her.

“Is what okay?”

“This.”

Maka didn’t understand so she simply smiled and nodded. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” 

Then, she grabbed her laptop and book, shuffled them into her satchel, and dragged everything into her bedroom. Maka flopped down on her bed and buried her face in her pillow with a sigh. The dampness from the weather had seeped into her bones. She was cold and stiff and uncomfortable. A hot bath, she decided, would be nice. Since she didn’t live alone anymore and couldn’t waltz around in her nudity, she gathered up her pajamas and clean underwear under one arm, her laptop under the other, and slunk off to the bathroom. 

She didn’t want to see Soul and know that he was so hurt, just like Chrona.

Maka ran hot water and put in a splash of sweet smelling bubble bath that had been a birthday gift from her mother—arriving ridiculously early with a postcard and a single balloon. Then, she put a CD into her laptop and lowered the volume. When the tub was finally filled, Maka stripped out of her clothes and stared hard at herself in the mirror. Her stupid underdeveloped body, her stupid small breasts, her flat butt, her childish face, and all her baby fat. God, she hated her body. As always, she put her towel up over the mirror so she wouldn’t have to look at herself and slipped into the hot bath. She sank deep into the water until it washed over her face. Deeper and deeper, until her pale ash-blonde tresses floated up above her face like seaweed, Maka sank into the tub. 

Was she under the sea?

With a cry, she resurfaced and gasped for breath. She looked down at her body but it was all hidden by bubbles and she didn’t have to look at herself. She sank in again, blowing bubbles with her pursed lips on the waterline. She inhaled a little water and coughed into her hands. 

There was a soft knock on the door. “Master, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Soul,” she called.

“Do you need anything?” he offered. 

“No. Do you?”

She sensed his fear through the door. “I was… hoping to go to bed… even though it’s not nighttime.”

“Of course,” Maka said and smiled into the bubbles. “Have a nice rest.”

She listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps down the hall and then the house was quiet. There was only the faint pitter-patter of rain on the window and Maka’s soft music drifting from her laptop. She sank deeper in the warm comfortable water, but didn’t fall asleep.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review! You have all been bad reviewers lately! I’m a good updater so throw me a bone!


	9. The Albarn's Daughter

A lot of character-jumping in this chapter. There’s really a lot going on in this story—a bunch of side plots, but they’re all important. There’s also a shocking revelation so let’s get going!

Everyone should go check out my little self-challenge story based on the doujinshi **Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver**. It’s pretty cute, not to toot my own horn or anything. And it’s listed under the same name. Check it out and please review! **Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver!**

X X X

Spirit Albarn dropped off his daughter and her slave at home, stopped in at a random restaurant for breakfast, and then went home. Once there, he shouldered his unmade mattress aside, fished around inside the tear in the box spring for the shoebox he had hidden from everyone, and yanked the whole thing out by one tattered edge. 

Inside the dusty box that had once held running shoes, he had a few precious but banished memories—the wedding video, several photographs of Kami, her wedding ring and his own, childhood videos of Maka, the file of the woman he had pretended to cheat on Kami with so she could neatly divorce him without anyone ever realizing the shit she had gotten herself into, and the throw-away cell phone that Kami sometimes called him on. Spirit knew she had its twin, but these phones were strictly for emergencies only. He punched the first speed dial and waited for Kami to pick up.

They had arranged this whole stupid plan and it was falling apart around their ears. 

And Spirit had to be the one to stay behind with their precious daughter and know that she hated him for something he had never done—cheating on her mother—which had only been a cover-up for Kami’s clever stupid plan. He was the one that really suffered because of this, but then again, maybe Kami was the one who was really suffering. She hadn’t seen or touched their daughter in five years. She was the one who had to remain far away and in hiding. Spirit just had to see the mistrust and hatred in Maka’s face when she thought about the lie that he had cheated on her mother and broken apart their family.

The phone just kept ringing and ringing against his ear. It was clear that Kami wasn’t going to pick up.

With a sigh, Spirit decided it had been a hopeless attempt in the first place. Kami wasn’t going to answer his calls no matter what happened. He didn’t even know why he kept this phone with her number programmed on speed dial. Maybe he hoped she would answer him someday and everything could go back to normal.

Spirit laughed to himself and shoved the phone back into the box.

He rubbed his face, exhausted and worried. Since someone had found and attacked Maka, that meant they had probably found Kami, too. No one in his family was safe anymore and he had to do something about it. But what? What could he do alone? He couldn’t tell Maka what was happening, tell her that she needed to be careful, that her parent’s divorce had been set up, that everything around her was a lie. He was trapped by Kami’s lies… again.

…

Maka came out of the bathroom about an hour later in a waft of scented steam. She was warm and wrinkly but content at least. She padded into the living room while she dried her hair with her damp towel, looking to see where Soul had lain down to sleep. He had sounded so exhausted when he knocked on the door, like he was going to pass out on the spot, and she hoped he hadn’t fallen asleep on the floor or someplace else ridiculously uncomfortable. 

It took her a long moment to spot him in the dimness of the dreary day. 

Soul’s battered body was a dark form on the couch, silvery hair catching the grey almost-artificial-looking sunlight streaming in through the window and the sheer white curtains. He was lying there without blankets or pillows, curled up like a small puppy with his long arms around his knees, but even so he looked unspeakably comfortable. His jeans hugged the curve of his long legs, his butt, and his hips. His shirt was plastered to his chest, showing the lumpiness of the bandages beneath the fabric. His pale face was smooth with sleep, relaxed, but she could see faint scars on his mouth and lips and a single long crack had worked its way down the center of his lower lip. It looked raw, bloody, and painful. 

“Ouch,” Maka whispered sympathetically as she looked down into his face, at his damaged lip and the fingers of an ugly bruise at his throat along with all those bite marks. She fished some chap stick out of her jacket pocket where it hung on the rack and carefully smeared some on his battered lip. 

She was almost afraid she’d hurt him and she must have because immediately, he woke with a start. 

Soul’s crimson eyes were wide open and blind in his fear. He sat up sharply on the couch and wrapped his arms around his middle with a cry. That wound must have hurt him badly because sweat broke out on his face and rolled beneath his chin. Whimpering, he lifted his eyes to Maka’s face and whispered, “I’m sorry, Master. You frightened me.” He touched his lips with trembling hands.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Maka told him gently. “Your lip is split. If you put some of this on it, it’ll heal faster.” She pressed the small cylinder of chap stick into his palm with a smile.

He stared helplessly into her face, ugly fingers wrapped around the tube. 

“Go ahead,” Maka murmured. “Put some on.”

Nervously, he pulled off the cap with trembling fingers. Then, he glanced from the tube to Maka’s soft face and back again and his scarlet eyes were bright with fear. Maka put her hand on his and gingerly guided his hand to his damaged mouth, helping him smear chap stick on his split lip. She put the cap back on with her thumb, slipped it from his fingers, tucked it back into her pocket, and watched his curious face as he traced his tongue over the crack in his mouth.

“It tastes good,” he murmured.

Maka smiled. “It’s called Kissable.”

His head snapped up, crimson eyes wide with terror.

It was then that she realized what that sounded like and her face flushed red. Did he think she was planning on… kissing him or something even worse? “Um, that didn’t sound right,” she whispered and scratched the back of her neck sheepishly.

“Y-you’re not going to kiss me?” he asked softly, confirming what she had feared.

Maka shook her head.

Soul looked so terribly relieved that she almost felt offended, but she didn’t say a word about it. Maybe there was something more to his fear of being kissed or of feeling kindness. Instead, she removed the chap stick from her pocket, pressed it into his hand, and smiled softly. “Go ahead, keep it for your mouth. If you put it on every day, I’m sure you’ll be healed in no time at all.”

He put his fingers to his mouth and licked his lips again.

Maka sighed. “It’s lunch time. Are you hungry?”

He hesitated, bit his lip, and then nodded. “Yes, Master.”

Maka smiled down at him. She was making progress.

…

Kami Albarn was naked and tied to a chair. The roughhewn wood was digging into her bare back like a sword and she wondered if her flesh was cut. She was too cold to even feel her body anymore, everything was numb and lifeless. She squirmed, but the rough ropes around her wrists that kept her hands bound behind her back only wore away the skin and she had no hope of escaping without some divine interference or a major catastrophe.

Kuro’s black face blended in with the darkness so that she could only see the whites of his evil little eyes, but Nero’s white face shined like that of a porcelain-white doll. The two men leaned down over her, standing like twin statues on either side of her chair and she felt their hot breath on the top of her bare breasts.

“What do you want, bastards?”

“The same thing that we’ve…” Kuro began.

“…always wanted, Kamiii,” Nero continued.

“We want your daughter and him,” Kuro said again.

Kami tilted her head so that her ash-blonde tresses tickled her bare shoulders. “I don’t know anything,” she said flatly. “Why don’t you just bring your boss in here? We all know that you two are fucking failures. You couldn’t catch a dog if you had bacon grease behind your ears.”

Nero stroked her face and his fingers felt like a rough stick. “Weee caughttt yooou, Kamiii,” he hissed. “Didn’ttt weee?”

Kami turned her face away, wrenching her neck unpleasantly. “Just cut to the chase, bastards,” she said fiercely. “What do you want?”

Kuro shrank about in the darkness, slithering around like a snake. Then, there was a small hollow knocking and he called, “Mistress?”

Kami’s toes curled. Oh, shit, this wasn’t good. She hadn’t honestly thought that their master was here! She squirmed, but the chair held her firmly and the ropes cut into her wrists like daggers. Nero put his rough hands on her bare shoulders, forcing her steady and bringing her gaze forward, as the beautiful woman stepped from the shadows. Kami narrowed her green eyes, meeting the mirrored orbs without flinching.

“Why, hello, Yuca,” Kami began. “I never expected to meet you here, dear sister.”

Yuca grinned, her face a mirror of Kami’s own. They were twins after all, but only alike in face and body. Yuca was a dark flower, prickled and spiny like a beautiful but deadly nightshade blossom, and Kami was a benevolent goddess in golden light and white silk. Twin sisters, perfect enemies.

Yuca smiled at Kami and reached out to stroke her sister’s bare breast. “It is strange, isn’t it?” she asked as she circled Kami’s chair. “We’re twins. We lived the beginning of our lives in each other’s arm and now you fight me at every turn.”

“That’s what happens when you turn into a bitch.”

Yuca struck Kami hard across the face and the blow rattled her teeth. “You shouldn’t speak like that to me, dear sister, not when I hold the lives of everyone you love in the palm of my hand,” she snarled. “I bet you’d cry even if I slaughtered that ridiculous husband of yours.”

Kami didn’t let her sister see her agony at the thought. Not Spirit, he had already sacrificed so much to try to stop Yuca from destroying everything Kami loved. He deserved so much better than all the shit she had put him through, poor sweet Spirit. Instead, she fixed her face into a mask of boredom. “What is it you want, Yuca?”

Yuca put her face very close to Kami’s and Kami shivered at the heat coming off her sister’s body. “You already know what I want, Kami, dear. I want everything you hold near and dear,” she hissed.

“Might you be a little more specific?” Kami asked cheekily. 

Again, Yuca struck her across the face and Kami’s ears rang. She heard Kuro and Nero chuckle in the darkness. She spat blood on her sister’s face and chest and clothing, grinning up through her split lips. 

“After all, there’s a lot I hold near and dear,” Kami said.

Yuca snarled. “You stupid fool,” she said venomously. Then, she stroked Kami’s brutalized face. “We could have been friends, Kami. We could’ve done this together, but you had to go and raise a family and try to stop me.”

“It’s my duty as the older sister.”

Yuca punched her, flat-out, and Kami yelped. “We both know that I am the older sister,” she snapped.

Kami grinned. “Really? I get a little confused what with the fact that I always have to go around covering for you and cleaning up your messes.”

Yuca grinned. “Oh, no, precious sister. I’m the older child,” she said coolly and put her nose against Kami’s. “You know that. After all, you might have always been watching after the things I’ve done, but you have always been afraid of me and hide from so much as the pass of my shadow.” She stroked Kami’s cheek and then pinched cruelly, digging her nails into Kami’s flesh. 

Sharply, Yuca turned away. 

“Find out what I want. Use any means necessary.”

There was a sudden bar of light as a door opened and then in slammed abruptly and Kami was alone in the darkness again. Behind her, Nero and Kuro snickered and she heard a metallic snip. She was afraid, she admitted, but she wasn’t going to do anything else to endanger Maka or Spirit. She would die before she would let that happen. But… she knew Yuca wouldn’t kill her, not yet anyway. Her sister had gone through too much trouble to bring her back alive to kill her yet, but Kami had no doubt that it was coming—probably long after Maka and Spirit had been tortured to death in front of her eyes. Kami knew that by the time her sister decided to kill her, death would be a blessing.

…

Ragnarok wrapped his arm around Chrona’s fragile skull and relished the feeling of pure power that overwhelmed him. He could destroy Chrona right here and now. He could crush Chrona’s bones like crackers in his fists. He could gouge out Chrona’s eyes and feel that thick hot blood like living velvet on his hands, gushing out. He could force Chrona into a frilly woman’s dress and ladies panties and make him strut around. He could make Chrona cry and scream and sob like a brutalized child because that was all Chrona was.

Just a slave.

A stupid slave.

No one cared about Chrona.

Except maybe Maka. Sweet Maka cared about everyone… even stupid useless slaves like Chrona. Maka had such a big beautiful heart and Ragnarok loved her for that at the same time he hated her for that. She had enough love to spare a little for Chrona, but she never gave Ragnarok any. And Ragnarok was not used to being denied the things he wanted.

“Please, y-you’re hurting me,” Chrona whimpered.

Abruptly Ragnarok released his little slave because he realized that his strong thick fingers had gouged deep into Chrona’s bare chest. Blood was running like crimson tears down the scarred white flesh, staining into the waistband of Chrona’s jeans. 

Ragnarok didn’t apologize though. He just pushed Chrona harder against the wall and his out all his threats and punishments through clenched teeth. He wasn’t going to let Chrona take Maka’s love and attention from him anymore. But…

He didn’t want to kill Chrona.

He liked being able to torment and own Chrona. 

He’d have to think of something else, some way to keep Chrona in fear of even talking to Maka. But what? What could be bad enough to keep Chrona from speaking with Maka, his only real source of kindness on those rare occasions? Ragnarok looked at Chrona’s bare emaciated chest and the wounds his fingers had gouged into that soft white flesh. He knew what he could do now and he leaned down to whisper his poison into Chrona’s ear. 

As expected, the boy whimpered and begged him not to. 

Ragnarok smiled. He knew he had his slave under his thumb again.

Maka was a sweetheart and people often wanted to do things for her simply because of that, but who knew how long that could last? Ragnarok, on the other hand, ruled other people with fear and threats of punishment. He knew they would always always always obey him, but Maka might be in trouble sometime in the future. And when that day came, Ragnarok would be there to help her vet out the trouble with his iron fist.

Chrona let out a heartbroken sob.

…

Maka couldn’t sleep. She was awake again, endlessly awake. When was the last time she slept…? Five years ago, she realized, not since before her mother left. She was an insomniac, cut and dry and there was no escaping it. Groaning, Maka rolled over in bed and smothered herself with her pillow. God, how she hated this. She wanted so badly to be one of those people who fell asleep the moment their heads hit the pillow.

There was a faint knock on her bedroom door.

“Come on in,” she called, voice half-muffled by the pillow.

The door creaked open and Soul’s pale bruised face was shadowed by the yellowish moonlight. He looked sick like that, like a rotting corpse, and he moved about the same, slow and pained, and whimpered slightly with each step. He was clearly in a lot of pain and there was blood oozing from the crack in his lip, down his chin, like a ribbon.

Maka sat up in bed, looking at him with concern. “Are you alright?”

He collapsed on his knees beside her bed, whimpering in anguish, and she heard him sob.

“Soul?” she repeated.

His hand knotted in the sheets and he let out a small cry. 

“What’s wrong?”

This time, he hissed, snarling and whimpering to himself like some small cornered animal. Hs bowed over the bed and his entire body began to tremble like it was going to break apart. A half-stifled scream escaped his throat, raw and chilling as if he had been screaming forever, but Maka hadn’t heard anything and she was always awake anymore. 

Immediately, Maka leaped from her bed and crouched beside him, hesitantly putting her hands on his quaking back. 

“Soul, what is it? What’s wrong?”

He grabbed her hand and dug into her, completely wracked with agony. Then, the bare flesh of his arm split and began to peel apart. The flesh beneath squirmed as if laden with maggots and a disgusting stench, like rotting meat, filled her bedroom. The ripping spread up Soul’s arm, over his shoulder, and vanished beneath his shirt. The wound was like mold and Maka watched in terror as it spread into his beautiful face. His eyes flew open and she saw the rot seeping through the whites of his eyes, turning them black and ugly. The only things that remained the same were his shining blood-colored eyes and the agony in his face. 

“Help me, Master,” he sobbed.

His grip on her hand became excruciating and she felt her bones grinding together. A strangled cry escaped him and blood rolled from the corner of his mouth. He pushed his face into the bed, sobbing in pain, and Maka put her hand on his back. The flesh beneath her palm squirmed and tore and something slithered between her fingers. She jerked her hand back, but Soul caught it and clutched it, pressing her knuckles to his decaying face. 

“Please, help me,” he begged.

“I… I don’t know how,” she whispered.

Soul screamed in agony—unrestrained. Maka clutched his face between her palms even as blood rushed over her fingers. Suddenly, Soul leaned forward and pressed his damaged mouth to hers. She tasted death on him and pulled quickly away, a cry caught in her throat. He lay on the floor like something discarded as she scrambled back from his rotting body. Even so, he stretched out his bony fingers, grasping desperately at her feet. Blood gushed from his mouth and nose and eyes. 

It was as if he had been poisoned.

“Soul!” Maka shouted, but she wasn’t sure if she was afraid of him or something else entirely.

Then, abruptly, she awoke with a start and it took her a full minute to recognize her surroundings. She was lying on the couch in the living room with the television blaring quietly in the background. Soul was stretched out on a pallet of blankets and pillows in a dark corner. He was sleeping comfortably, breathing evenly and deeply, and there was no sign of the bloody rot that had been devouring his body. Maka’s heart rate slowed and within minutes, she had forgotten the nightmare all together as if something had sucked it from her mind. She only felt troubled and afraid.

She rolled off of the couch and went to Soul’s side. His face was handsome in sleep, as innocent as that of a child, and Maka gingerly touched his cheek with her fingertip. He stirred in his sleep, groaning, and pushed his cheek into her palm with a small contented sigh. Maka smiled faintly and stroked the corner of his damaged mouth absently for a long moment. His lips quirked softly in a half-realized smile, then twisted in pain as he shifted and pulled the wound bisecting his chest. Finally, she turned off the TV and went to her room to not-sleep there. 

“Sleep tight, Soul,” she murmured and turned off the lights in the house.

X X X

You know what I hate now? People who Favorite or Alert but don’t review! It’s so annoying!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	10. Bloody Breakfast and Soft Talk

I just discovered the most awesome song today. **Florence and the Machine’s “My Boy Builds Coffins.”** Check it out! It rocks!

Oh, and a lot of you are leaving me reviews with questions, but you don’t tell me who you are so I can answer or you don’t log in! So, if you want an answer, log in or at least put in your penname. I do track people down. 

And about how I was wigging out over reviews. This story is good except for the occasion slack-off chapter. I was really worked up about Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver because about five people favorite but no one reviewed. So I was frustrated. I’m all better now!

X X X

Maka didn’t sleep that night—as usual, in-freaking-somniac—so she was sitting up in her bed, typing diligently on her laptop, when Soul stumbled in at precisely eight o’clock. The front of his shirt was soaked in blood, drenched so badly that there was a small trail of drops at his bare feet. He was breathing hard, gasping in agony and biting the corner of his already-injured mouth, yet he had a tray of breakfast balanced in his ugly hands. Maka sat bolt upright, a scream caught in her throat at the sight of him, and her dry tired eyes streamed.

“W-What are you doing?!” she demanded and lurched to her feet. She immediately took the tray from his hands, set it on her nightstand so that bottles of sleep aids carelessly slid all over the floor, and guided him to sit down in her desk chair. She pulled his shirt up hopelessly and saw much of the same. His entire chest was just a mess of blood. “Soul! What happened?”

“I,” he hesitated, wincing as Maka pressed both hands to his bleeding chest. “I made breakfast, just like you told me to, and I knocked a pan over. When I tried to grab it, I slipped and fell down.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “My chest hurts.”

Maka gripped his shirt and ripped it down the middle. Then, she pressed her hands against the bandage, but blood squished out between her fingers. “I’ve got to get these off,” she muttered. “I need to see what you did to yourself.”

He gripped at her wrists and his fingertips were cold. “I’m okay. I fell down,” he murmured.

Maka ignored him, grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk drawer, and cut the bandages away. The wound was jagged and ugly, stitched up with thick black thread that tightly held the wound together but made him look like a monster. Now that she had all the soaked bandages off of him, she realized his wound was not as bad as it had appeared. There was a lot of blood but it wasn’t gushing out of him. He had torn the stitches just below his sternum and had kept moving so that they just bled continuously, soaking through his bandages and shirt. She let out a sigh of relief, grabbed a wad of tissues, and pressed them to the small wound. 

“Here, put your hands like this,” Maka ordered him and went to the bathroom to fetch some clean gauze for his torso. When she came back into her room, he was in the same position she had left him in, sitting there forlornly. “What were you thinking? You bled so much. Why didn’t you fix yourself up?”

“I… I slept too much and I was late.”

“Late for what?” Maka asked and knelt between his spread knees so she could see exactly how serious his injury was. She dabbed at it with peroxide and he didn’t even flinch. This pain wasn’t enough to hurt him. “What were you late for?”

He cut his eyes to the tray on her nightstand. “Breakfast,” he confessed. “And then I burned the toast and had to try again.”

“Breakfast?” Maka repeated incredulously. Then, her own words screamed back through her skull. ‘I'd like you to prepare breakfast for me every day by eight o'clock. If you forget, I'll send you back. I don't need anyone useless living with me.’ Oh god, this was all her fault! She had been trying so hard not to hurt Soul and here all this blood and pain was all her fault! “Oh god,” she whispered and put her fingers to her mouth.

Soul’s crimson eyes snapped up to her face and then he threw himself at her feet, clutching the loose fabric of her pajama pants. “Please, please, don’t send me back! I’ll do better! Please, just give me one more chance!” he begged and his voice was cracked with agony. “Please, I really will! I-I’ll get up on time! Please, don’t send me back to the warehouse! I’ll—” his voice broke completely and it was a full six seconds before it lurched back like an animal cry “—I’ll be eaten alive, please!” His fingers clutched at Maka’s shoulder, smearing blood on her bare skin. 

He seemed in danger of going on begging and pleading forever and Maka carefully put her fingers to his lips. The moment she did, tears welled up in his crimson eyes and flooded down his cheeks. Against her fingers, he whispered, “Please, please, don’t…”

“Soul—”

“Please, Master, please, don’t send me back. I swear I’ll do better. Please—” He took her free hand in his cold shaking one and put her fingers against the bite wound on his throat. He gouged her fingers into the wound, pressing as if to strike his jugular vein. “—please, beat me. Please, hurt me. Just… don’t! Please, don’t send me back.” He lowered his head and his silvery hair pasted to his wet cheeks. A heartbroken sob escaped him. “Please…”

“Soul!” Maka grabbed him by his shoulders and hugged him tightly against her, uncaring for the blood on his body that was getting all over her clothes. Even like this, he still desperately pleaded beneath his sobs and cries. It was as if he had done something terrible and unforgivable that Maka found it hard to believe this was only about breakfast. One of his tears, hot and wet, ran down her throat and beneath her shirt like a warm invading touch and she shivered. “Soul, be quiet and just listen to me for a minute.”

She felt him nod against her shoulder and his body stiffened in her embrace, shuddering like a small broken bird in her hands. Gently, she pushed him back and looking into his face, into his beautiful crimson orbs, and she brushed a few tears away with her thumbs. 

“It’s okay, Soul,” she whispered and leaned her forehead gingerly against his. “I’m not going to send you back.”

His bloody eyes brightened and he let out a breathy little sound of relief. “You won’t regret it, Master. Honestly, I’ll work as hard as I can. Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

“On one condition.”

“I promise! I will never forget like this again!”

Maka shook her head, caught his face against her palms, and waited for him to meet her eyes. “You have to stop calling me Master, Soul,” she whispered. “I know you know my name is Maka. Call me that and you can stay with me.”

He let out a heartbroken sigh of relief and nodded several times. “I won’t forget. I’m so sorry, M-Maka, for all this trouble I’ve caused.”

She put her hand to the wound on his chest. “You saved my life, Soul.”

“You own mine,” he whispered and there was something helplessly sad in his voice.

Maka shook her head. “Not anymore.”

He tensed. Was she sending him away after all? “Please—”

She put a finger to his lips. “You saved my life and I saved yours. We’re even now. We’re friends,” she whispered to him.

A ripple ran through his body. “R-really?”

Maka nodded and leaned back so she could look into his scarlet eyes. She felt her heart break at the sight. He looked so hopeful, but at the same time resigned to something terrible as if he expected her to slap him at any moment and laugh in his face. Because he looked like he desperately needed reassurance, Maka embraced him gingerly again. For a moment, he was like a stone statue against her, but then he slowly relaxed and put his arms around her. He let out a shuddering sigh and buried his face into her neck.

“T-Thank you, M-Maka,” he whispered.

She smiled, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she gingerly put her fingertip to the bisecting scar and traced its long jagged path. Beneath the thin warm flesh, she could feel his heart racing, but even as she held him, it began to slow and calm. Finally, he relaxed completely in her arms and breathed deeply. 

…

By the time Maka felt it would be alright to let him go, the breakfast he had made in panic was stone-cold and not very attractive to start with. Silently, Maka picked up the tray, carried it to the kitchen, and dumped it in the trash. Then, she turned to Soul where he lingered sheepishly in the threshold and asked him what he wanted for breakfast. For a long moment, he just stared at her and then lowered his eyes to the blood on the floor—his blood.

“Y-you’re not going to punish me?”

“For what?”

He put his bare toe into the blood, smearing the half-dried ruin. “For this mess.”

“It’ll come out,” she said softly and put the dirty dishes in the sink. “You need to keep your strength up so you can heal. Now, tell me what you want. I’m cooking this morning.”

Soul took a few steps to stand beside her and wrung his ugly hands. “But—”

“Here, Soul,” Maka said and pushed him into one of the chairs. “Let’s play a game. You answer all my questions without hesitating, and I’ll tell you anything you ask me.”

“Anything?” he whispered.

She nodded. “Now, what do you want for breakfast?”

He licked his lips. “P-pancakes,” he ventured.

Maka smiled and pulled down the ingredients. He got up to help her, but she shooed him back into his seat. “No, no,” she chastised. “Sit. Now, ask me anything.”

Soul chewed his lip, putting his tongue in the deep cut, and then whispered, “What did you want for breakfast?”

“Pancakes,” she said. “Good choice.”

He let out a gasp of relief. 

“My turn,” she said and absently beat up the batter. She poured the first pancake into the pan, taking her time thinking. What did she want to ask Soul? She turned around to face him, taking in his naked chest, save the bandages of course. He was so thin and so scarred that it was almost agonizing to look at him, but she did anyway. Something drew her gaze. “Tell me the best thing that has ever happened to you.” She figured that was a good place to start.

He didn’t hesitate. “This.”

“This?”

He nodded cautiously. “You… you haven’t hurt me and you feed me. I don’t have to sleep outside or on the ground. I have clothes and just…” he took a deep breath. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

There was a small silence and Maka reminded him that he could ask her a question. 

“W-what is… the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Maka flipped out the pancake and tried to pretend her hands weren’t shaking. What was the best thing that had happened to her? “It would have to be when I was little,” she began, “back when my parents were together. Probably the time we went to the lake and that big fish jumped right into the boat and hit my dad in the face.” She smiled at the memory, wondering what had happened to ruin her family so much. Spirit had never seemed like the kind of man to cheat, not even now, yet that was what had broken up her parent’s marriage. She missed reminiscing like this. Lately, it was just easier to forget those happy memories—let them go like dust in the wind, like petals of a dead flower, like sand in the hourglass. Her naïve happy life was long over and there was no getting it back.

“M-Maka?”

“Yes?” she said, startled by Soul’s voice. She immediately pulled herself from her reverie and tried to smile at him.

“It’s your turn.”

Maka put a plate of pancakes in front of him along with syrup and a fork and began work on her own stack. “Eat while it’s warm,” she reminded him and he dug in eagerly, smiling like a small child. “What’s the… worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she hadn’t spoken them because Soul’s face cracked like a porcelain plate into thousands upon thousands of little shards and slivers.

He set his fork down and carefully put his finger to the rim of his plate.

“Soul—”

“I… I really can’t answer that. I know you told me I have to but…” he hesitated, gnawing his lower lip until Maka told him to stop. “There’re too many bad things that have happened to me. I… I don’t think I could pick just one.”

“Oh, Soul,” Maka whispered and came to sit beside him. She put her hand on his knee, but he jolted away from her. “Is there anything that hasn’t happened to you?” 

He lifted his crimson eyes to her and said almost proudly, “I’ve never been raped.”

Maka’s heart skipped several beats, stuttering like a dead thing in her chest. “W-what?” she whispered.

Soul tilted his head, silvery hair feathering against his cheeks. “I haven’t been raped,” he repeated. “No one’s ever wanted this body. It’s ugly.”

Maka stared at him helplessly, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. How could he be proud, be happy, about the fact that he had never been raped? Soul continued on as if he didn’t notice her horror, smiling slightly as he spoke. 

“Not even the other slaves wanted me. I was never even taken by an object!” 

“Stop it!” Maka screamed and put her hands over her ears. “How can you be happy about that?!”

Soul’s face fell into a mask of confusion. “But… but that’s a good thing…”

“That’s the best thing that happened to you?”

He shook his head. “No,” he murmured and met Maka’s emerald eyes. “I came to be here. That’s the best thing that’s happened to me.”

“Soul…” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“You’ve suffered so much…”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked softly.

“I had to.”

“You chose this?”

He shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “No…” and it was so like a cry that Maka didn’t dare ask again. 

She stacked up her pancakes, slid a few more onto his plate, poured out two glasses of orange juice, and sat down at the table across from him. In silence and pain, they ate breakfast and then left for school like an ordinary day. Because that was all it was, no matter how rocky the start, it was only an ordinary day.

…

Lord Death’s son, Death the Kid, and his sister-slaves, Liz and Patty, were waiting in Maka’s homeroom. She couldn’t say she wasn’t happy to see them, but it was quite a shock to see Kid standing there in his dark suit and silver skull at his throat. The girls, dressed like twins in blue jeans and red sweaters, were staring with rapt concentration at Kid’s back. Liz looked as if about to grab him at any moment and it might have had something to do with the fact that Kid was throttling Maka’s homeroom teacher, demanding to know Maka’s location.

“Um, hi Kid,” Maka ventured as she closed the door behind her. What a frightening sight he was! “Can I help you?”

Shocked, Kid released the teacher and fell backwards over his own long legs. Liz grabbed him by his lapel and yanked him back to his feet. Patty barked a gleeful laugh, clapping her hands and chanting something about how clumsy Kid was.

“Maka,” Kid stuttered and his pale face flushed with embarrassment. “I was worried you weren’t going to come in today.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Kid shook his dark head. “No, no, everything’s fine. I just…” he glanced at Liz “…I needed to talk to you.”

“About what?” Maka asked and set her books down on her desk. 

Kid’s gold eyes looked dangerous, but then suddenly as soft and sweet as butter. “In private,” was all he would say. “Maybe we can meet after school?”

“Sure,” Maka said and hoped she didn’t sound suspicious. “Where?”

“Do you know the little café by the used book store?”

Maka grinned. It was her favorite place and she often visited both in one go. She’d buy a book and then go next door for a light lunch and a death-by-chocolate hot chocolate with mounds of frothy whipped cream and a single cherry. “Oh, yes,” she said happily. “You want to meet there?”

Kid nodded. “At nine? I hope that’s not too late for you.”

Maka waved him off. “I’m an insomniac.”

“Oh?” Kid’s gold eyes widened. “I’ll see you there at nine, then.” Then, he gestured for his girls and the three of them left the classroom together. 

Lord Death’s son… what could he possibly want with Maka Albarn? 

Maka glanced at her teacher who still looked rather rattled and asked if she needed anything, but the woman shook her off. Maka took Soul by his elbow and led him to her seat, arranging him comfortable beside her, safely out of Ragnarok’s reach, and waited for the day to begin its monotonous pace. It was going to be a long and eager day, waiting, dying to know, what Death the Kid wanted to say to her. Beside her, Soul touched his chest and whimpered.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 

Review! You have all been so wonderful! Maybe you’ll get a reward later… hehe!


	11. Conversations with Death the Kid

Everyone should go check out my little self-challenge story based on the doujinshi Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver. It's pretty cute, not to toot my own horn or anything. And it's listed under the same name. Check it out and please review! Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver!

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It was dark and cool as Maka and Soul headed to the café to meet Kid. Maka jumped at every shadow, but Soul couldn't afford to. His chest still hurt, ached even to breathe. Overhead, the moon was a great laughing face, as if it knew something that they didn't. Soul pulled open the door of the café for her and they both entered, small bell tinkling overhead, shoulder to shoulder. Maka didn't know why her heart was racing. The place was deserted. There was no sign of Kid or his girls, Liz and Patty.

"Are we early?" she asked no one in particular, but the clock read exactly nine o'clock. So, where was Kid?

A young waitress approached her, carrying a tray and a menu under her long arm. Her body was clad in a nice uniform—a dark skirt, white blouse, and small bowtie at her throat—with a frilled cream-colored apron over her uniform and tied behind her back in a big bow. Her breasts strained against both the shirt and the apron. She had a kind pretty face, long dark hair pulled back in a braid that ran down the length of her back, and big honest indigo eyes. In the pocket of her apron, she carried a black slave remote which would have made Maka back out the nearest door if her face hadn't been so soft and kind. Soul, on the other hand, cared nothing for her face and had his back against the door before she had even opened her mouth.

"Soul," Maka said sternly.

"Oh, it's alright," the young woman said gently. "You must be Maka Albarn and Soul Eater, right?"

"How do you know us?" Maka asked. Suddenly, with the way her week had been going—attacked by that man and all—she was incredibly suspicious of anyone who knew her, especially since she had never laid eyes on this woman in her life.

"It's alright," the young woman continued. "Kid told me you were coming."

"Kid?" Maka relaxed, but only a little. What reason did she have to trust Kid or anyone else right now? She reached out her hand and Soul took it gingerly. She only trusted Soul right now, in this strange new twisted world she found herself trapped in.

"Please, come with me," the waitress said.

"Why should we?"

The young woman's indigo eyes darted out the window at the dark night beyond. Then, she shook her head and sighed. She turned and walked away, stepping through the swinging doors that led to a small dark room with maybe two tables inside, and was gone for a long moment.

Seconds later, Kid stuck his head out the swinging door, smiled broadly, and waved cheerily. "Hey, Maka," he called. "There's no need to be so suspicious. We just have our own little table set up back here. This restaurant doesn't allow slaves to eat in the café so they created a small room here for those of us that…" he hesitated. "Well, for those of us that choose to feed our slaves. Cater to the customers and all that jazz. Come on, it's okay."

Soul's hand tightened around her fingers to the point of pain, but Maka didn't have it in her heart to push him away. She could feel him shaking.

Together, they followed Kid into the back room. Three scant tables were set up in a miniscule room without table clothes, silvery candles, silk and wax flowers, silverware, or any of the other delicacies that were on the main café tables. It was a bare minimum kind of room, designed for slaves and the people low enough to treat their slaves like people. At the round table in the corner, hunkered over different drinks, several people sat together in companionable silence.

Liz was leaning over a mug of black coffee, breathing in the thick steam in a state of bliss. Her long dark-blonde hair was scraped back by a silvery skull clip, exposing the circle of scars around her throat so that they looked like a strand of pearls, ugly yet beautiful at the same moment.

Patty was eagerly digging into something heaped with whipped cream. Her short hair was in feathers against her rosy cheeks, lips pulled back in such a wide smile that it looked as if half her face would wind up tucked behind each ear. She was all smiles and laughter, giggling wildly, and there was a glob of cream on the tip of her nose.

The young waitress was standing behind Liz and she had a long expanse of black ribbon in her hands that she carefully tied like a necklace over the ring of scars on Liz's neck. Her menu and tray were set on the table, waiting patiently to be picked up again.

Slouched in a chair far away from the table with a plastic cup full of water was a small young man with insanely spiked aqua-colored hair. Like Soul, he wore a thick slave collar around his neck. (Which reminded Maka that she not only needed to get Soul some shoes, but she needed to figure out how to get that ugly thing off of him. It couldn't be impossible. Kid had gotten the collars off of Liz and Patty, after all.) His skin was dark with a tan that suggested working slave. He looked as if someone had just rolled him out of bed between the hair and the slightly grumpy look on his face.

When the strange boy laid eyes on Maka and Soul, he leaped up from the chair and threw his arms around both of them. A booming voice tore through them like a knife and for a moment, Maka didn't know where the voice was coming from. It couldn't possibly be coming from this small young man with his arms thrown around their necks.

"HELLO! WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?" The young man boomed.

"BlackStar!" the young waitress shouted though her voice was lost to his roaring, whirling around from Liz.

"BUT THESE ARE NEW PEOPLE HERE TO MEET ME!"

She pulled the slave remote from her apron pocket, pointed it at him like a weapon, pressed the first button, and shouted, "Sit!"

Soul tensed against Maka's side at the sight of the remote.

But nothing painful happened. He didn't collapse in a fit of screams or begin to writhe in agony. There was a slight dragging pressure from where the boy was holding them and then suddenly he was gone, jerked away like a fish on a line. His rear slammed down in his chair again with a crash and the thing almost tipped over, but luckily caught on the wall. Disgruntled, the boy crossed his thick strong arms over his chest and huffed irritably.

Kid nudged Maka gingerly. "It's okay. He won't maul you again… Well, not for at least five more minutes."

Soul was just standing there, stunned, and Maka tugged his hand to get him moving. They slid into chairs around the table, bidding small greetings to Patty and Liz. Kid sat down beside Liz and patted the remaining chair for the young waitress, who sat down with a nervous glance at the impossibly loud young man.

"Maka, this is Tsubaki," Kid introduced. "And the loud one is her slave, BlackStar. We've formed a sort of club," he explained. "We're all friends who treat our slaves like people and it's easier to do a lot of things together. Strength in numbers, you know?"

Tsubaki smiled slightly. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"If you're all into treating your slaves like people, why do you still use the remote on him?" Maka asked Tsubaki.

The young woman winced. "BlackStar can be a little… hard to handle," she explained quietly. "It's not a painful command. It simply forces his butt down onto the nearest and most convenient flat surface, be it a chair or the floor."

Maka thought back to his loud voice and the way he strangled them in a hug. She understood what Tsubaki was saying. Soul squeezed her hand lightly and she turned her head to meet his crimson eyes. Softly, he conveyed that he would never behave like that. Maka smiled softly at him and stroked his battered knuckles with her thumb.

"So, Kid, what did you want to talk to me about?" Maka asked.

"Do you want something to drink?" Tsubaki asked kindly.

Maka shook her head and fixed Kid with her green eyes, pinning him down.

He cupped his hands around the mug of pale coffee loaded with cream and sugar. "Actually, we just wanted to let you know that we were here and that you can trust us," he told her gingerly.

"Let me know you were here? Why would you do that?" Maka asked.

Kid's golden eyes slid to where her hand was twined tightly with Soul's, thumb still stroking his battered knuckles. Maka snatched her hand sharply away from him, hating how Soul winced slightly and then cradled his ugly hands against his chest, but she didn't want to say anything to comfort him. She didn't like the way Kid was staring at her with those eyes of his, those eyes like golden coins from a sunken ship from an earlier century. There was something age-old in his face and pained by the sight of Maka pulling away from Soul.

"We are accepting," Tsubaki said softly.

Maka stood up sharply, nearly knocking over her chair. "I don't need anyone's acceptance!"

Kid sat back. "Maka—"

"We're leaving!" Maka said coldly to the small assembly of people. Then, she grabbed Soul by his elbow and towed him from the small back room of the café. The front door slammed brutally shut behind them, small bell tinkling ironically.

…

Tsubaki sighed sadly and traced her finger in a path across the scuffed table. "That could have gone better," she said softly and twisted a long strip of dark hair that had escaped her braid around her finger. She stood up and gathered her tray and menu against her chest. "I have to get back to work."

"Maka's been going through a rough patch," Kid said by way of explanation and stood up with her. He fingered the ribbon around Liz's throat, hiding her scars.

"What made you think she'd be like us?" Tsubaki asked and slipped the remote back into her pocket.

"Soul was hurt badly protecting her recently and she started screaming in the hospital when she thought he was dead. She cares!" Kid insisted.

"Not as much as you thought," Tsubaki said sadly.

"She's friends with Ragnarok," Liz ventured.

"Ragnarok?" Tsubaki repeated. "That man is a monster."

"I know," Kid said.

"He beats and starves his poor slave and Maka is friends with him!"

"I know," Kid sighed.

"And you thought she was going to be like us?"

"I know," Kid sighed.

Tsubaki hugged her tray to her chest tightly. "What were you thinking, Kid?"

He put his face in his hands. "I guess I jumped to conclusions…"

"That poor slave of hers is even still wearing his collar. You know what the inside of those things look like," she whispered.

"I know," he mumbled. "I messed up okay."

"I have to get back to work," Tsubaki repeated. "BlackStar, you stay right there." She ducked back out into the café, answering the small chime of the bell over the door with a cheerful greeting and her trademark smile.

Liz carefully touched Kid's shoulder.

He wanted so slide his hand over hers, but he couldn't. Instead, he looked up into her face and smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, Liz, I know you liked them," he said softly.

She shook her head. "It wasn't your fault, but…" She glanced at the door. "I think she might come around."

"What makes you say that?"

"That boy," she whispered. "He was touching her."

Kid lifted one brow, confused. "I don't understand."

"He touched her for comfort," Liz explained. "It's small, but he trusts her."

"But what about Ragnarok and Chrona? The friends you have reflect the kind of person you are," Kid pointed out.

"Maybe," Liz said softly and retracted her hand. She gazed at the door for a long moment, then returned to her seat to finish her coffee. Beside her, Patty threw her arms around her sister gleefully, giggling like an idiot and Liz sadly pushed her little sister's hair back from her face. "I'm so sorry, Patty," Liz whispered.

"Liz?" Kid whispered.

But she shook her head and returned to gaze to her empty mug of coffee.

…

There was another soft knock on the bathroom door just as Kid got out of the shower. Having learned his lesson from last time, he yanked his pajama pants up over his hips even though his body was still wet and put the towel over his wet hair. As he had expected, Liz was standing on the other side of the door, looking sheepish and small.

"Liz, is something wrong?"

"Can I… Could I talk to you for a while, Kid?" she whispered.

"Of course. Can it wait just one minute?"

Her face paled and she backed away. "N-never mind! I don't want to b-bother you!"

Kid caught her wrist before she could run away. "That's not what I meant, Liz, and you know it. I meant, my hair is wet and can you wait a moment while I dry it?"

Liz squirmed in his soft grip, but finally nodded sheepishly. She lingered in the threshold, clutching the frame in her thin fingers desperately, while Kid viciously dried his raven-black hair with his towel and then combed out all the tangles he had created. Then, he turned to face Liz, led her out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, flipped off the light, and guided her to sit on his neatly made bed. He sat down beside her gingerly and tried to take her hand. Not surprisingly, she denied him.

"What is it?" he asked gently.

"Y-you remember when I told you about… about my baby?" she began nervously.

Kid remembered that horrible confession very well. (It was one of the only two nights she had allowed him to hold her.) Liz had been raped a lot during her time as a slave before she became his and, because she had never been given any form of birth control, she soon became pregnant. Due to the regular abuse she took, the rape, the starvation, and finally and cruel push down the stairs, she had lost the baby in a shower of blood—miscarriage in her eighth month. She had told him that it almost looked human when it came out of her all covered in gore. He slowly nodded, that night's horror creeping back into his mind and heart. He felt slightly sick and he couldn't even imagine how Liz felt.

"Can I tell you about… Patty?" she whispered.

Kid nodded. "I'm here for you, Liz, whenever you need me. Tell me anything you want to," he offered.

She bit her lip and wrapped her arms around herself. "You know how Patty is always so… happy…" she whispered.

Kid nodded slowly. Even though he didn't want to admit it, Patty's constant cheer was a little annoying and he sometimes wanted to ask her to be quiet. It wasn't human to be so happy or so forgetful. Patty was almost like a three-year-old child, small-minded and simple. "What about her?" Kid prompted.

"It's… it's my fault she's like that…" Liz whispered. "I couldn't protect her well enough and someone hit her in the head. She was unconscious for four days and when she came around, she just wasn't the same as she used to be. She's… reverted to a childlike state when we used to be safe."

"You had a happy childhood?"

"In a way," Liz whispered. "We had a small happy family, but when our father committed suicide, my mother just couldn't support us anymore. She told us we had to go out on the street and try to survive that way." She shuddered. "I couldn't do it. We couldn't do it. When we ran into this man who promised to feed us and protect us, I just couldn't say no, but he sold us into slavery. Everything just became even worse from there… I didn't think it would ever get better… until we met you, Kid…"

Kid touched her shoulder and she leaned into him.

"Do you know why that man hit Patty?" she whispered.

Kid shook his head, resting his cheek on the top of her head. Her hair smelled so sweet, but her body was quaking like a leaf.

"He wanted her to lick his asshole, Kid, to put her tongue inside him like that."

Kid jolted and closed his golden eyes tightly. How could someone do that to such sweet wonderful girls?

"She was sobbing so hard," Liz continued. "We had done bad things before, but this was the worst. She just couldn't do it and when she pulled away, he cracked her in the head with the fireplace poker that was red-hot at the time. I remember the room smelled like burning hair and flesh and stank of sex. He wouldn't even let me help my sister after that. He had to fuck me first while she was bleeding and unconscious on the floor. Sparks from the fire kept leaping onto her body…"

Liz hid her face with her hands. "It's my fault Patty was hurt. I should have just taken her place like I always did," she whispered and sobbed brokenly.

Kid hugged her gently against his bare chest. "Liz, it's not your fault," he said into her hair and stroked her shuddering back. "Bad things happen to slaves every day, but you never have to go through that again. That's all behind you now, Liz. It's okay…"

"But, Patty—"

"Even if you had taken her place, something else would have come along that had hurt her. You could never have protected her from everything, Liz… It wasn't your fault. Nothing's your fault," Kid whispered gently.

Liz sobbed into him for a long time, clutching him like a lifeline, until she was all cried out. Then, she wiped her face hard, making her flesh red and swollen. Kid shushed her and gently brushed the tears off her lashes. He felt cold with her confession and could hardly relish the fact that he was holding her for the third time. This was too horrible…

"Liz," he whispered.

She sniffled. "Thanks for listening, Kid," she whispered.

He hugged her one final time. "Anytime," he murmured. "Do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "I'm just going to have some milk and go to bed…"

Kid smiled faintly. "Anytime, Liz," he said softly and watched her leave his room. The scars on her shoulders gleamed like they were lit up from the inside. Then, he allowed the burning rage to bubble up inside his chest. How could anyone be that cruel? "I'm so sorry, Liz," he whispered. "I will never ever hurt you like that."

Outside, the darkness of the night was like an abyss of inky darkness save the small disk of the grinning moon. Its teeth were bleeding. Somewhere in the city, there was the scream of sirens and then everything was quiet again. Bad things happened quickly and silently, like a blow to a young girl's head or the loss of a child or the failure of a mother to her daughter, and then the world continued on oblivious to everyone's pain. It was only dark outside.

X X X

There you go! A REWARD for being awesome reviewers lately! Two chapters in one day! Don't make me regret it!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	12. Maybe Someday: Understandings and Fights

Man, I had something to say but I can't remember what the heck it was! I hate that! Grr!

I'm glad everyone is enjoying this so much and handling all the craziness rather well! You're all also being great reviewers! Good job, everyone! *applause*

X X X

Hot blood was dripping and running all over Kami Albarn's naked body. Thick coagulated blood was plastered against her flesh like glue and pasted thick in her hair. The cold dank air kissed her bare breasts and raised goose bumps on her thighs like a prickly defense. She worked her blood-slick wrists against her bonds, feeling and relishing the slight slick give in the ropes because of the blood coating her wrists and the rubbed-thin skin. The chair was like an unforgiving Iron Maiden by now, hard and unyielding against her spine and cut shoulders. In the darkness, Nero and Kuro began laughing and she heard the snip-snip of some treacherous painful tool in the dark.

"Cooome ooon, Kamiii," Nero purred.

"Just tell us what we want to know?" Kuro demanded.

"Wwwhere is heee?"

She spit blood in the direction of their voices but was certain she didn't hit anything. She wasn't going to talk. She wasn't going to tell them anything. She wasn't going to hurt her daughter or her ex-husband or even that poor slave. She buttoned her lips and waited for the lash of the whip to come again, whistling through the darkness of the dank room.  
She wasn't disappointed.

…

Maka stormed out of her favorite café into the darkness of Death City's deep night. She stomped her feet loudly as she walked, huffing and grumbling to herself. Who did Kid think he was? Trying to take her away from her friends, from Ragnarok and Chrona? Trying to swear her into his group like some kind of sick fraternity? Trying to make her bow to what he thought she should do? Well, Maka Albarn followed no one! Do you hear that, Mr-High-and-Mighty holier-than-thou Death the Kid? Maka Albarn is a leader, not a follower—always has been, always will be—because that was the way she had been raised and had learned to love being during her parents' raucous divorce. At the risk of sounding cheesy, she would stand up alone for something she believed in before she'd sit down passively with others.

Maka Albarn follows no one!

Soul trailed three steps behind her, his bare feet slap-slapping on the concrete. Maka turned to tell him to hurry up, but when she laid eyes on his handsome face, she just couldn't and slowed her own pace to match his.

He was walking with his crimson eyes half-lidded, soft smile gracing his lips, and pale face turned skyward as if soaking up the moonlight. He looked so happy, so content, so beautiful… The bruises on his face were glossed over by the silvery light, the damage to his mouth smoothed out by shadows, and his crimson eyes looked less like blood and more like rubies lit with starlight. He had turned into a child before her very eyes, happy to be out past his bedtime.

"Soul?" she whispered and his name sounded like a breath.

He turned his head, beautiful ruby eyes opening slightly, but the smile didn't fall from his face as she was expecting. "Yes, Maka?"

Experimentally, she looped her arm through his. He stared at their linked elbows for a long moment and then adjusted her arm in his with a soft inscrutable look. Was he afraid of her touch or indifferent or enjoyed it? After all, he confessed that he hadn't been raped so what reason did he have to fear a simple touch? Maka eyed the scars and bruises on his wrists and his ugly battered hands. There were scars all over him as if his body had been torn apart at the seams and then pieced back together. Then again, after going through something as horrible as he probably had, even the softest touch could turn into pain at a moment's notice. He had every reason to be uncomfortable or frightened.

"Soul, is this okay?" Maka asked gingerly.

"What?" he asked his master and lifted one hand to scratch at the ugly collar around his thin throat. It was a wonder his thin swan-like neck didn't snap under the weight of the heavy iron monster. Maka wondered if it hurt him just to be on tightly around his throat.

She ran her fingers over the back of his hand, over his battered knuckles, and his bruised wrists. "Touching you like this?" she explained.

"I'm your slave. You can do anything you want with me," he murmured. The muscles under her hand rippled with tension.

"That's not what I meant," Maka said softly. "I mean… do you mind being touched like this?"

As if confused, he whispered, "Like what, Maka?"

She bit her lip nervously. "You know, gently or… for no real reason…"

"There's a reason behind every touch," he said softly. "That's what my mother used to say."

"You have a mother?" Maka repeated, shocked though she didn't know why.

Soul glanced at her from the corner of his ruby eyes and then said sadly, "I suppose so." Once again, his eyes looked more like blood, sad and hurt. As he spoke, his filed-to-points dangerous-looking teeth caught the moonlight. "Doesn't everyone?"

Maka felt unspeakably stupid and scrambled to correct herself. "I mean, you have a family?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

Still stupid, she realized with a flush. "I mean, what was your family like, Soul?"

"They're the ones that sold me," he said plainly and the muscles in his body tensed against her side.

Maka fell silent, walking along beside him, arm in arm. The flesh beneath her fingers was tattered with the ridges of scar and worked down to the bone, but so blessedly warm. She wanted so badly to ask him more about his family, but she felt that these wounds ran raw and deep. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Soul. He didn't deserve any more pain in this life. Especially since he had saved her life back then, taking that knife to be gutted like a fish in her place.

"Soul?" she ventured.

"Yes, Maka?"

"W-why did you save me back then? I mean, I'm nothing to you…"

He lowered his eyes to the ground and his face turned dark. "You don't want to hear it," he said softly.

"Please, tell me."

"My intentions were not noble like you might think… I had only my own interests at heart, not yours…"

"Please, tell me why you saved me, Soul."

"I didn't save you. I saved myself," he confessed after a long silence. "If you were killed, I would be returned to the warehouse and eaten alive. When I realized that I couldn't fight that man and win, I decided that I was better off dead and to let myself be slaughtered. I knew after he killed me, he would kill you too. But anything was better for me than being returned and eaten alive, even being dead."

"So you… didn't care if I was killed?" Maka whispered.

He shook his head. "Despite my life being worth nothing to anyone else, it still means something to me."

Maka bit her lip and sniffled.

"I told you that you wouldn't want to know," he murmured.

They walked down the dark streets of Death City in silence, still arm in arm though a tangible tension (though not thick enough to be cut with a knife—maybe by a very persistent person with a fork) had stretched between them. Soul's breathing was ragged and sharp, but Maka was dead-silent as she tried to choke back tears. She had no idea why it mattered to her so much. For some reason, she had hoped Soul cared for her, but that was foolish. He was a slave and she was only his master. What reason did he have to love or even trust her? She had done nothing to deserve anything from him. She didn't even know why she had bought him—something to do with her mother's cryptic postcard.

"What are you going to do to me now that you… know what my intentions were…?" Soul asked finally. "Are you going to send me back?"

"Would you go back?" she whispered.

He shook his head. "No. I would cut my own throat before I let myself go back."

Maka choked on sudden tears.

"Are you crying?" he murmured.

She jerked away from him, hugging herself, and walking quickly away until several feet separated them. "No," she said coldly, but her voice broke sharply. Damn it, she hadn't cried in years, not since she had learned her father had cheated and her happy family was breaking apart around her. Why was it the thought of her slave not caring for her made her want to just break down? What the hell was wrong with her lately?

"Maka," Soul murmured and came to stand beside her. She felt the heat rolling off his body. "I'm sorry—"

"Get away from me!" She screamed. Maka whirled on him, emerald eyes full of tears that caught in the moonlight. "Go away! I hate you!" She turned to run, bolting down the street like the devil was at her heels, but Soul caught up to her easily and grabbed her by her elbow, spinning her around to face him.

"How can you be angry with me?" he asked her. His voice was cold and sharp, full of bitterness but not quite rage. "I've never been loved once in my life! How can you expect me to care for you? I don't even know what that feels like! My own family sold me only because my hands were broken in an accident—" He suddenly cut himself off, whirled around, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. His slender shoulders were quaking—actually, all of him was trembling.

"W-what did you just say?" Maka whispered.

"Nothing. It was nothing," he muttered and shook his head as if to clear his mind. "It doesn't matter anyway. That part of my life is over. I'm only a slave now, nothing more."

"Your family got rid of you all because of an accident?"

"It doesn't matter…"

"Tell me!"

"It doesn't matter!" he shouted, showing his first real emotion other than fear.

Maka grabbed him by the back of his collar and he let out a sharp cry of pain as she yanked him around to face her. "Tell me, Soul!"

"It doesn't matter! It happened a long time ago!" He yanked himself away from her and a ribbon of blood ran down his chest from beneath his collar. Had one of his bites opened? "It's not important! It doesn't matter! Just leave it alone!"

"I'll send you back!" she screamed.

He spread his arms like a sacrifice to be crucified. "Then do it! Or else kill me now!" His eyes were like spots of blood in his face and his sharp teeth made him look like some kind of demonic monster that had escaped from the hottest pit of Hell.

Maka took a step back, hugging herself. Her eyes filled with tears again and they flooded her face.

"If you want to kill me, then kill me. Do you think it matters to anyone if I die?"

Maka sobbed.

"It doesn't," Soul said bitterly. "Everyone stopped caring about what happens to me a long time ago…" He lowered his arms to his sides and sighed heavily, all the rage and fear leaving his body until he was just an empty shell. "I'm telling you, Maka, it doesn't matter what happened to me or what happens to me in the future. The only thing I care about is not becoming someone's meal. I don't want to be eaten alive anymore. I'm tired of that…"

Six times. He had almost been eaten alive six times.

"I'm sorry," Maka whispered.

"You're sending me back, aren't you?"

She shook her head, goofy blonde pigtails whipping her tearstained face so that strands caught on the moisture. "I couldn't bear to see you hurt like that," she confessed.

"Why would you care what happens to me?" Soul asked.

"I…" she hesitated, hugging her shoulders tightly in her small hands. "I don't know… I only know that I don't want to see you hurt anymore… at all… That day you reached out to me in the warehouse, all bloody like that—"

Soul winced, remembering his desperation that day, reaching out his bloody hands through the bars imploringly.

"—I just didn't want to see you hurt, Soul," she finished. "You don't deserve to be hurt."

Soul timidly touched her arm. "You're the first person to ever think that," he whispered.

"That's not possible," she said softly and looked into his face.

His eyes were shadowed by his silver bangs. "You don't know what my life has been like, Maka."

She touched his scarred hand, laying her fingers over his. "I'd… I'd like it if you'd tell me sometime…"

Soul didn't smile. "Maybe someday…" he whispered. "Maybe…"

Maka didn't smile either.

It wasn't a smiling kind of conversation.

Together, master and slave walked home in the darkness.

…

Spirit Albarn fought and debated and lingered over the phone for at least an hour. Should he or shouldn't he? Then, finally, he dialed Kami's number against his will. As the first time he had called, the phone just rang and rang and rang. Then, he put his face in his hands and moved the flesh all around. He hadn't slept last night and he felt about ready to pull his red hair out by the roots. He didn't know how Maka managed to get along not sleeping for sometimes a week straight. This was impossible!

"Kami," he muttered. "Where are you? Things are falling apart here!"

He glanced out the window at the dark night beyond.

"I hope things are going better on your end, my sweet, but he knew she wasn't. Kami had always been in more danger than himself or even Stein. After all, it was Kami's twin sister who had caused all of this. All over something Kami had that she wanted.

Again, Spirit whined and debated and fussed over the phone. Then, finally, he put in a called to Stein. He didn't even give the doctor a chance to say hello before demanding—"Stein, it's Spirit. Tell me everything you know."

He felt Stein smile on the other end of the line. "Nice to hear from you, too, Spirit. Let's meet later for a drink."

"No, we need to talk about this now—"

"Trust me, Spirit, it's better if you wait until it's safe," Stein said coolly. "Now, I have to go. I'm working, you know. I'll see you later at that place at eleven. Why don't you call the others and let them know we need to get together?"

"I only know one other person involved—"

"So call her."

"Stein!"

But the good doctor had already hung up and Spirit was yowling at dial tone. With a snort and a sigh, he slammed the phone back into its cradle. Then, he debated and lingered and fidgeted over calling the only other person he knew of who was involved with this ridiculous affair. Finally, Spirit picked up the phone again and dialed Miss Mari Mjolnir, one of his ex-wife's closest friends and Maka's second mother. As much as he hated to drag her back into this mess, he knew he had to.

…

Far away, Kami Albarn cried out in pain as more of her soft flesh was torn and tattered.

Close by, Spirit Albarn listened impatiently for his ex-wife's friend to answer her telephone.

Across town, in the safe confines of his bedroom, Ragnarok punched Chrona hard in the face.

On the other side of the city, Kid slept with dark tormenting nightmares of Liz's confession.

In the café, Tsubaki continued working diligently with BlackStar yelling in the background.

In the hospital, Dr Stein saved several lives, but lost one despite his desperate efforts.

Downtown, the ringing of the phone woke Mari in her little flat above her thrift store.

And somewhere dark and unknown, there was a small desperate cry in the night.

…

After Soul and Maka arrived home, Soul—not being an insomniac—went right to sleep on his pallet of blankets in the living room and Maka retired to her bedroom where she—being an insomniac—didn't sleep. She closed her door tightly and listened at the door for a long time, making sure Soul was really settled down for the night, before she rooted around under the bed for all the slave paperwork that had come with him. Even though she was normally respectful of people's privacy, she was hoping the original reason for his being sold by his family was in his file. She leafed through every single sheet of paper there, but there was nothing about his background in the entire folder.

Grumbling, she picked up the remote and scrutinized it. Tsubaki used it to gently control BlackStar—putting his butt on the nearest flat surface—since he was so unmanageable, but Kid didn't even have collars on either of his girls. Maka wondered if she could safely take Soul's collar off. After all, he wasn't dangerous or impulsive. In fact, the only display of emotion Maka had seen from him was when she had asked him about his family. So long as she didn't do that again, she should be fine. But she wasn't even sure how to go about getting that heavy iron thing off his neck. So, she slipped the remote into her nightstand drawer, took a cocktail of sleep aids, and tried to sleep.

But, as usual, she couldn't and lay awake looking at her ceiling until a bright beam of sunlight carved a path through her dark bedroom. With a sigh, she got up to begin going about her day as she always did. In the kitchen, Soul greeted her with a small smile as if nothing had happened between them yesterday though he did carefully touch her back when he asked her to sit down so he could serve her breakfast. Well, that was a start at normalcy.

Maybe someday…

X X X

It's really hot here and the laptop is toasting me alive! How is everyone else's weather going?

I have a lot of chapters caught in backlog. I had this finished when I posted chapter nine. Ugh, I'm throwing myself off with how I answer reviews. I have a feeling I'm going to give something away because I'm confused with what I've posted and what I haven't. But it's nice to be able to post every day, right? Or would we prefer me to post as I finish, but then I might not post every day? Everyone who usually reads me know how I can be if something else strikes me! (I mean, look at how I'm completely abandoned Taking Sora. I'll get back to it eventually though.)

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review! Don't make me regret what I said earlier!


	13. What Ragnarok Wants, What Maka Wants

It’s so hot here. It’s like ninety degrees! You’d all better love me for typing so diligently in this heat. The laptop is roasting me alive. I’ll be all edible and slow-roasted and crunchy by the time this chapter is finished! *pant pant*

Woo! You are looking at a high school graduate here! I just graduated last night! Woohoo!

X X X

It was a regular morning, noisy and boisterous in a school full of students and their slaves. Ragnarok shouted a cheerful greeting when he laid his dark eyes on Maka. At his side, Chrona was hunkered down, clutching his stomach and gasping for breath. Ragnarok had just punched him brutally in the gut for no reason and he hadn’t been prepared for the pain, unable to deal with it. Maka narrowed her eyes when she saw Chrona’s slumped form and Soul hooked his fingers in the hood of her sweater. Suddenly, she was grateful for his soothing presence. Having Soul around made her much less tolerant of Ragnarok’s abuse of poor Chrona.

“Hey, Ragnarok,” Maka said plainly and slid into her usual seat beside him. 

Her bare knee brushed Chrona’s bony back and the poor boy whimpered in pain, even at Maka’s soft touch that he usually secretly leaned into when Ragnarok wasn’t looking. What had changed? Soul slid against her leg on the other side of Chrona, leaning against her comfortably. He had changed a bit since their small fight on the street the night before and the shouts about his family and what he had been through. Maka had to admit, she liked the change in him, but she was worried about the change in Chrona’s behavior. What had Ragnarok done to him now? 

“So, what have you been up to lately?” Ragnarok asked Maka and took out some paper for notes.

“Nothing much,” Maka said and chewed the end of her pencil. 

“So, Maka, I was wondering if you wanted to go out for pizza tonight.” Ragnarok asked. “Just you and me?”

Maka wrinkled her brow. There was something weird about the way he had asked her… almost like he was expecting a date instead of an outing as friends. “Like a date?” she asked and bit her lower lip. Oh boy, she was so not in the mood for this kind of drama this early in the morning.

Ragnarok blushed, but it was hard to see under the bandages crossing across his pale face. “Yeah… I was hoping…”

“Oh, Ragnarok, I really just… I don’t like you like that. You’re my friend,” Maka explained softly. She twirled her pencil between her fingers, refusing to meet his black eyes. “You understand, right?” she asked and tried to smile. 

Ragnarok’s face fell and he said softly, “Oh…”

For a moment, there was only silence between them, but Chrona suddenly let out a sharp howl of pain that stopped the class in its tracks. Ragnarok had his hand fisted in Chrona’s violet tresses, ripping brutally, and his fat fingers had crept down Chrona’s face, digging into his tightly closed eyes. Even the teacher looked as if he wanted to say something to stop Ragnarok, but he had no right to interfere between a master and his worthless slave.

Maka, on the other hand, had a right to intervene between her friend and poor sweet Chrona. She jumped to her feet and slammed her hands down on the desk, sending pencils and papers flying in every direction. At the loud sound, Chrona screamed again.

“Ragnarok! Let him go! It’s not his fault!” Maka screamed. Then, she yanked back her hand and punched Ragnarok full in the face with a crack. A fountain of blood sprayed from his broken nose and he toppled backwards out of his seat. He released Chrona and the slave leaped for Maka, hugging her leg and sobbing desperately as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Had he bitten his tongue maybe or was there a worse wound lurking somewhere?

“Y-you hit me, Maka!” Ragnarok shrieked.

“Stop hurting Chrona!” Maka shouted. “There’s no reason for it! Don’t you have a heart, you bastard?! You hurt him so much and he doesn’t even deserve it!”

“Chrona doesn’t deserve anything!” Ragnarok protested and clutched at his face. “He’s just a worthless slave!”

“He’s not! He’s a human being!” Maka shouted. Her hand was still rolled into a tight fist and she wanted to punch Ragnarok again, but Chrona’s arms around her leg prevented her. “How can you act this way all the time? You’re fucking abusive!”

“I am not!”

“Why the hell would I want to date you, Ragnarok?! You have no heart, no soul, no nothing! You’re just an empty hurtful shell and you don’t even have a reason for it!” Maka screamed. “How could you hurt Chrona so badly all the time?! He’s a nice person!”

The teacher tried to stop them, having broken out of his state of shock. “Now, now, Maka and Ragnarok, please stop this or I’ll have to call security!”

“So call security! He’s an animal!” Maka shouted in the teacher’s face and then whirled back on Ragnarok. “What right do you have to hurt him?!”

“I own him!”

“Does that matter?! He’s not a human punching bag!”

“He’s not human!”

“He is! What is wrong with you?!” Maka screamed. 

Chrona sobbed into her leg, blood and tears streaming down her skin.

Maka lunged at Ragnarok again, ready to claw out his eyes or something equally vicious. Soul caught her from behind with both arms around her waist. His arms were strong and powerful and he easily lifted her lashing feet from the floor even with Chrona hanging on her legs. Then, he set them both down on the other side of the desk and kept himself between them and Ragnarok, putting his back to Maka’s so she wasn’t looking at Ragnarok anymore. Panting, Maka leaned into Soul’s warm back and patted Chrona’s violet head gently.

The teacher let out an audible sigh of relief that the fight had been broken up and went to call the headmaster—Lord Death. This was a fight and there had been blood so it had to be dealt with harshly. Maka and Ragnarok would need to be punished. 

“You bitch!” Ragnarok screamed and hurled himself at Maka. 

Soul was still between them and he made no move to get out of the way, simply spreading his arms wide like a sacrifice. Ragnarok punched him in the face as hard as he could and Soul toppled backwards over Maka. She barely caught him as he crashed to the ground and cradled him against her along with Chrona. Her emerald eyes burned with hatred and rage for Ragnarok. She felt like a lioness with her two precious cubs in her arms that she had just wrestled from the grip of something that had tried to eat them. 

“You should drop dead,” she snarled at Ragnarok and gently put her fingertips to the bruise forming on Soul’s face.

Ragnarok leaped at her again but she was caught between Soul and Chrona, hugging them tightly against her body. He never got a chance to strike her though because two security guards grabbed him from behind and dragged him away from her.

“You’ll pay for this, Maka, you’ll pay!” he howled. Then, he was out of the classroom and it had fallen eerily silent.

The school nurse crouched beside Maka and cautiously touched her shoulder. “Maka, sweetheart. Are you okay? Let’s get you all into the infirmary, okay, honey?”

Maka nodded and wrestled herself to her feet, still half-trapped in the messy embrace of Soul’s fallen body and Chrona’s sobbing heartbroken form. She looped one arm around Chrona’s narrow shoulders and pulled Soul to his feet with her free hand. Soul gave her a small smile, showing those pointed teeth of his, and there was a bit of blood in his mouth. Chrona was still sobbing into Maka’s side so she hugged him closer, whispering soft soothing nothings. 

Soul, on the other hand, was far from a sobbing mess. He wiped some blood from his mouth with his thumb, licked his split lips, and said softly, “That was pretty cool of you, Maka.”

“Thanks,” she said and didn’t have to force a small smile. That meant a lot coming from him, especially since she wasn’t sure how she was going to have to pay for her hasty actions. Maybe it would have been better to just go out on a date with Ragnarok and try to let him down gently when they were alone. But she had done what she had done and there was no taking it back now. She just had to deal with the consequences of her actions.

…

Maka, Ragnarok, Chrona, and Soul spent nearly two hours in the headmaster’s office explaining what had happened and trying to come to some sort of agreement over what should be done. It had gone so far that the school nurse had actually investigated Chrona’s body for the harsh abuse Maka spoke of and they didn’t have to look more than an inch in any direction beneath his clothing. Then, they investigated Soul’s body for signs of abuse because Ragnarok was insisting that Maka had done all those things to Chrona, but Soul protested and, save the fresh punch on his face from Ragnarok and the large gash bisecting his chest (which was dismissed because Maka had indeed taken him to the hospital), all his wounds were at least a week old. It was hard to believe that much time had passed since Maka had bought him, saved his life, that is. 

Finally, Lord Death lowered his white hands from his face and let out a sigh. “Under the circumstances, I think it would be best to dismiss the fight since Maka was only defending Chrona and her slave, Soul, was also hurt by Ragnarok.”

“Chrona’s just a stupid slave!” Ragnarok shouted.

“That may be true,” Lord Death continued, “but you struck down Maka’s slave. You should know better than to do anything to another’s property.”

“But Maka does things to Chrona!”

“M-Miss Maka is only kind to me,” Chrona protested softly.

“Shut up!” Ragnarok shouted.

Chrona cringed into the arm of the chair, straining away from his brutal master with a whimper.

Lord Death let out a sad sigh. It was hard for him to watch things like this especially with his son, Kid, so kind to his two slave-sisters, Liz and Patty. He wished there was something he could do, but there really wasn’t. Chrona was Ragnarok’s slave and there was nothing he could do to help poor Chrona. Ragnarok owned Chrona and unless he relinquished that ownership, there was nothing anyone could do to help. Lord Death would put in a call to Ragnarok’s parents later tonight, but that was all he could do. With those heavy thoughts weighing on his mind, he dismissed the children from his office with two days suspension. It was the best he could do under the circumstances. 

…

Afterwards, Maka and Soul trudged home together in silence. It wasn’t until they arrived home safely that Maka broke down completely. The second she closed the door and sat down on the couch, she just started sobbing into her hands.

“God, I’m so stupid! Why did I do that?!” she cried. “Now poor Chrona’s really going to get it! I feel awful!”

Soul gave her several long minutes to rant and scream and cry herself out. Then, quietly, he came to sit beside her and wiped her eyes with his sleeve. “Hey, all anyone can ever hope to do in their life is what they think is right,” he murmured. 

Maka sniffled. “Where did you hear that?”

“My father,” he said softly and then fell silent.

She looked into Soul’s face. “What would you have done?”

“Nothing. I’m a slave.”

“What if you weren’t?”

Soul glanced at her with wide crimson and rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know…”

“Please, tell me,” Maka whispered. 

“I would have done the same thing,” he whispered. “Except… I might have tried to buy Chrona from his master. Money will get you almost anything.”

Maka sat bolt upright. Why hadn’t she thought of that?! “Soul, you’re a genius!” she shouted and bounded off to fetch the phone. Since her parents’ divorce, her father was always offering to buy her anything she wanted and now she was going to take him up on that offer. 

“Maka?” Spirit answered on the fifth ring. He sounded very tired.

“Hi, Papa,” she said cheerfully. “Listen, I need some money.”

For a moment, he was quiet and then he asked, “Are you going to run away?”

“No, I need to buy another slave.”

“Why Maka?”

Maka realized she could pussyfoot around the reason all night and Spirit would probably keep suspiciously asking, so she explained the whole situation to him, including her suspension and trip to the headmaster’s office. When she finished, her father was quiet for a long moment. She could hear him breathing slow and deep as if calming himself.  
Finally, Spirit sighed and said, “Well, Maka, I can’t argue with that logic. Does it need to be done right now?”

Maka nodded vigorously. “Yes! He could be hurting Chrona as we speak!”

“Okay,” Spirit said. “I’ll be right over.” Then, he hung up. 

Maka bounced back out into the living room where Soul was waiting on the couch with a confused expression on his darkly bruised face, sitting exactly where she had left him like some sort of statue. “What was that about, Maka?” he asked slowly. 

She flopped down beside him on the couch and grinned broadly. “I’m going to buy Chrona from Ragnarok!” she said cheerfully and hugged him awkwardly from the side. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before! You’re a genius, Soul!”

A moment later, the doorbell rang. 

“That’s Papa!” Maka said cheerfully and jumped to her feet. She shrugged into her coat. “Do you want to come with me, Soul? Or you can stay here and turn in early?”

He stood from the couch. “I’ll come with you.”

Maka grinned. “Thank you, Soul!”

It was then, as she honestly walked out the door to buy Chrona from his horrible master that Soul really realized that Chrona had been telling the truth. Maka was an angel. She was sweet and kind and she would never do anything to purposefully hurt anyone. Soul smiled and followed her to the ends of the earth.

…

As the front door swung shut, a shadow slipped inside.

…

Spirit, Maka, and Soul arrived at Ragnarok’s house in record time, hitting every light on the way there green—go! It was either a sign from Heaven that this was meant to be… or a sign from Hell to hurry the fuck up! Finally, they were there and Maka bolted from the car and to the door. She didn’t even knock, just barged on inside with a bang. Soul and Spirit were inches behind her, panting to keep up with her as she charge about. She raced right up to Ragnarok’s room without even giving his mother a glance where she was sitting on the sofa in the family room, flipping through a magazine, even though she called out Maka’s name.

In his bedroom, Ragnarok was—no surprise there—beating up poor Chrona. The boy was half-naked, wearing only a pair of tattered jeans in place of his usual dress, and sobbing hopelessly into his hands while Ragnarok whipped his bare back cruelly. Blood had stretched its fingers across the tile floor. 

“Stop!” Maka screamed.

Ragnarok sneered. “What do you want, bitch?!”

“I want Chrona!”

“To bad. Chrona’s mine!” Ragnarok lashed the whip across Chrona’s back again. 

“Stop it!” Maka screamed. “I want to buy him from you.”

“Not happening!”

“Why not?! He clearly means nothing to you!”

Ragnarok sneered, his face ugly and twisted in the amber light. “Yeah, Maka, but he means everything to you so I think I’ll keep him. You denied me what I wanted. I’ll deny you what you want.” He laughed. “What a cruel turn of the tables, huh?!”

“Please?” Maka begged. 

“No!” Ragnarok shouted in her face. “Chrona is mine and will be until he dies. Just deal with it, you bitch.” Then, Ragnarok grinned. “Don’t worry, Chrona won’t be alive much longer anyway…”

“You bastard!” Maka screamed and lunged at him.

Her father caught her around the waist, kicking and screaming, just as Ragnarok’s parents came up the stairs to ask what on earth was going on. After Spirit explained what was happening over Maka’s screaming and the lash of Ragnarok’s whip on Chrona’s back, they had nothing to say. Chrona was Ragnarok’s slave and he was free to do whatever he wanted with the stupid boy. With that, Ragnarok’s parents turned and walked away without a care in the world. 

“I tell you what, Maka,” Ragnarok said after he finished beating Chrona and was winding up the whip. Chrona was unconscious on the floor from either blood-loss or pain, maybe both judging by the state of his back. “I’ll trade you.”

Maka was crying hopelessly by now and Spirit was still holding her back with one arm around her waist. “What do you want? A date with me for Chrona? A kiss? A fuck?”

Ragnarok grinned. “All tempting, but no. I want your slave, your precious Soul.”

Beside her, Soul tensed but didn’t dare shift his crimson eyes to Maka.

“Well, Maka, how badly do you want Chrona?” Ragnarok teased.

Maka struggled against her father’s restraining hold. “You’re a bastard, Ragnarok,” she hissed. 

“Do we have a deal?” he repeated.

“Maka—” Spirit began, worried she might actually take that deal, but he didn’t have to worry.

“You’re a fucker,” Maka snarled. “I won’t give up Soul and, someday, I’ll save Chrona from you!”

Ragnarok laughed. “You’d better hope I don’t kill him before then, Maka. You are so slow, after all. Just look at your flat chest.”

“Shut up!” Maka screamed and tried to tear away from her father.

“Come on,” Spirit said and lifted her to sling over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “There’s nothing more you can do here and this isn’t helping.” Even as he carried her away, Maka continued to threaten and scream and fight. God, she had such a big soft heart. Why did these things always have to happen to his precious daughter? She didn’t deserve any of this—not her insomnia or the mess her mother’s sister had created or the lies to keep her safe. Poor Maka… Poor sweet kind beautiful Maka…

Behind them, Soul quietly closed the door on Ragnarok’s bitter life and followed silently.

…

Without disturbing anything and leaving no sign of its presence, the shadow slipped out of Maka’s house. It had only taken one thing and it would be exactly what it needed to destroy him. It’s duty was finished now and it melted back into the darkness.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	14. Convergence of the Adults Alone

This is kind of a short chapter, but it tied off very nicely for me so deal with it!

X X X

Maka had managed to cry herself to sleep the night before. When she woke up the next morning, sore-eyed and still exhausted, she almost got out of bed to get ready for school, but then she remembered her two day suspension and the fight with Ragnarok over Chrona. It was already painful to see Chrona beaten so horribly, but now Maka had lost her only friend as well. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she sobbed helplessly into her hands.

There was a small knock on her bedroom door and then Soul entered carrying a tray of breakfast.

“Soul,” she whispered when she laid eyes on his handsome face, still bruised black and angry from Ragnarok’s punch.

“It’s eight o’clock,” he said by way of explanation and set the tray on her lap. Soul had made a lovely omelet stuffed with cheese and ham, cut up some fruit, poured out a glass of orange juice, and set a wad of tissues beside the plate with the fork and napkin. He must have known she was crying. Had she been sobbing that loudly? Actually, Maka wasn’t even sure how long she had been crying for. Had it been all night, keeping him awake from much deserved rest?

“You didn’t have to do that,” she whispered and wiped at her tear-stained face.

“I wanted to,” he said softly and smiled.

“Soul?” she whispered and stared down at the tray. 

“Yes?”

“Nothing, never mind.” 

He nodded and left her to eat and cry in private, closing the door quietly behind himself. 

Even though breakfast looked delicious, Maka couldn’t bring herself to eat. She just kept thinking about Chrona, about how Ragnarok was probably beating and starving him now. She wished there was something—anything—she could so to help! Maka stared down at the food, remembering Ragnarok’s offer. He would give her Chrona if she gave him Soul. Immediately, she shook herself. She’d be right back where she started if she did that! Trying to get a slave she cared about out of Ragnarok’s clutches! She almost wondered if Soul mattered more to her than Chrona, but she pushed those thoughts away. Why was she even thinking that anyway?

Maka swung her legs out of bed, put her cold feet on the floor, paced to her cluttered desk, and picked up her mother’s latest cryptic postcard. The words on it were the same, but what more had she expected. _Maka, please, listen to me. You need to get him from the slave warehouse. He needs your help and you're going to need him to die for you in the future. Please, save him now and save yourself later._ “Soul,” Maka whispered. She didn’t want him to die, not for her, not for anyone.

What was she going to do with Soul?

And what about Chrona?

What about her only friend, Ragnarok?

What about Death the Kid’s offer to join his friends?

All that aside, what was Maka going to do now anyway? There was still the threat of that dark-skinned man and whatever mess her mother had gotten them all into. There was no question that something had to be done, but what? 

First things first, Maka supposed with a heavy sigh. She needed to get Soul some shoes.

…

Mari Mjolnir, Spirit Albarn, Franken Stein, and Lord Death were seated comfortably at the table in the rear of the smoke-filled restaurant during their lunch hour. To any prying eyes, they looked like a couple of friends meeting for drinks when the chance or impulse struck them. The truth was far from that.

Mari Mjolnir was seated beside Spirit on one side of the booth. Her golden blonde hair was scraped back from her face with a butterfly clip and her single golden eye was fixed on Lord Death as he spoke quietly about the events of yesterday—Maka’s fight with Ragnarok. She was resting her pale fingers on her eye patch. Her friends all knew about the knot of scar beneath the patch yet she felt more self-conscious of her injury than usual.

Spirit Albarn looked exhausted, unable to sleep last night yet again. His red hair was dull and lackluster, hanging limp around his pale gaunt face like blood. His blue eyes had sunk deep back in his head, lined with dark circles, and his normally pressed suit was rumpled as if he had slept in it. He had every right to be upset. This was his ex-wife, Kami, and his precious daughter, Maka, who were in danger yet again at Kami’s twin sister’s hands. He was a shadow of his usual boisterous self, slumped beside Mari with a cup of black coffee even at lunch time. 

Dr Franken Stein had to return to the hospital after this so he was wearing his scrubs and trademark lab coat. His grey hair was limp and flopped in his face, curling over his shirt collar and the rim of his glasses. The overhead light glinted off his large glasses and made the twisted scar on his face—stitched by his own hand back when it happened—dark and ugly. He was the one who had repaired Mari’s eye, too—well, not so much repaired as removed. He lit up a second cigarette and took a long drag, ridiculous chain smoker. 

Lord Death, headmaster of Maka’s Academy, was suited for his name. He was very tall and strong-looking with a stern yet startlingly young and handsome face. He had broad shoulders and big powerful hands. His skin was milk-pale, like that of a corpse, but beautiful. His hair was long and dark, pulled back into a low ponytail, and his eyes were like deep black pits that made anyone who looked into them feel as if he was already seven steps ahead their wildest dreams. He was an imposing figure that commanded immediate respect. (Though the same could not be said for his obsessive son, Death the Kid, who couldn’t command the attention of a flea if he was a lush dog.)

“What’s happened, Spirit?” Lord Death asked. His voice was the only part of him that didn’t fit his powerful image. He had a high cheerful voice under almost any circumstances, unless he was truly angry in which case whoever was at the receiving end had better back up.

“Yuca’s back,” Spirit said softly. 

“What makes you think that?” Lord Death asked and folded his pale hands on the surface of the table. 

“Someone attacked my daughter,” Spirit said. 

“Her slave, Soul Eater, was gutted like a fish and nearly killed,” Stein continued.

Mari gasped. “That sweet boy? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, Mari,” Stein said and took another long drag.

“There’s no reason to believe that Yuca is even alive,” Lord Death said.

“But—”

“That could have been a random attack. You know as well as I do that if Yuca had sent that man, he would have slaughtered your daughter and her slave even if my son hadn’t arrived when he did. He would have simply killed both children and the three slaves without batting an eyelash. The fact that he fled supports that he was not one of Yuca’s men,” Lord Death explained.

“Under normal circumstances, I’d agree with you, but I haven’t been able to contact Kami, either,” Spirit said.

“Well, Kami’s always been hard to pin down. Her location could be compromised.”

“Which reminds me, why are we still hiding Kami and doing this to Maka if we’re certain we’ve killed her?” Spirit demanded.

There was silence at the table as the four of them mulled that over. The only sound was Stein sucking on his cigarette and blowing out smoke. Yuca was such an evil conniving bitch and they had never found her body after that final showdown five years ago. No one was ready to admit she was dead and be wrong. They would all live in uncertainty and fear until they watched Yuca’s body go into the incinerator and saw her ashes scattered in the wind.

“Okay,” Lord Death said patiently. “Let’s say Yuca is alive, what does that mean exactly? Why is she going after Maka?”

Spirit sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “I don’t know. No one ever knows what Yuca wants except maybe Yuca.”

“But Maka is her twin sister’s daughter,” Mari murmured.

“You know how she is,” Spirit said.

Mari flinched and put her fingers to her damaged eye. 

“So,” Stein said. “What do we do?”

“What can we do?” Spirit said sadly.

Lord Death folded his arms. “Now, now, let’s not jump to any bad conclusions. Think positive, everybody,” he said cheerfully. “I tell you what we’re going to do. Spirit, Mari, you two are going to go out to that place where we last fought Yuca together and look around for signs of anything strange.”

“Lord Death, it’s been five years,” Mari protested.

“Do you have a better idea?” Stein asked her and took a long drag. 

“No…”

“Lord Death, please continue.”

“Thank you, Stein. As I was saying, Mari and Spirit will go look for anything strange. Maybe Yuca, if she’s still alive, is stupid enough to operate out of her old base. Maybe you can find Kami there, too. Stein, you stay here and continue as if nothing has happened. I’m going to talk to my son and get him to try making friends with Maka again—strength in numbers, you know. The kids will be safer if they stay together.”

“I can’t ask you to involve your son,” Spirit protested.

“Kid is a fantastic shot. Besides, he won’t stand idly by even if I ordered him to. Just say thank you, Spirit.”

“Thank you…”

“Then, it’s settled.” Lord Death lifted his big white hand and called cheerfully, “Check please!”

…

Suspended from the Academy for two days for fighting Ragnarok over Chrona, Maka was amazed at the state of the stores during school hours. It was a parade of grandparents and slobs that should have had jobs but didn’t. There wasn’t a school kid or blue-collar working-class man or woman in sight. Because of that, it only took about half an hour to pick out a pair of red Converse sneakers that fit his battered feet comfortably and suited him. Then, they went out for a quick lunch and returned home without a hitch. With a yawn, Maka flopped down on the couch. Soul lingered, hesitating, but sat down when she patted the cushion beside her.

“M-Maka,” he ventured. “Can I ask you something?”

She put her feet up on the coffee table. “Of course.”

“Why did you decide not to give me to Ragnarok in Chrona’s place?”

Maka sat bolt upright. “What? Why would you ask me that?”

“I don’t see why you’d keep me. Chrona means something to you, doesn’t he?”

Maka bit her lip. “I feel sorry for Chrona,” she confessed. “I really want to help him, but I wouldn’t have given you up. Ragnarok would have killed you just to spite me. Plus, I wouldn’t have made any progress, anyway. Ragnarok would just have someone new to beat up.”

Soul was quiet for a long moment.

“Why? Did you want to go to him?”

Soul shook his head and bit his cracked mouth.

“I’m glad,” Maka said softly and leaned her head back against the cushions.

“You’re glad?” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said plainly.

For a moment, they sat in silence, enjoying each other’s company and the cool of the apartment. Soul stretched his arms above his head but winced immediately with a small yelp of pain. Maka turned to face him, eyes scanning his face for signs of whatever had hurt him.

“Soul, what’s wrong?”

His crimson eyes darted.

“Tell the truth,” she murmured.

“M-my chest.”

Gently, Maka lifted his shirt and investigated the knot of bandages around his torso. No blood was seeping through, but she couldn’t see anything through the gauze. “Here, take your shirt off. Let me have a look, Soul,” she said gently and pulled his shirt up from the bottom.

He nodded, but winced as he lifted his arms. 

Maka shushed him as he bit at his damaged mouth and began unwinding the gauze from his thin body. The long gash was stitched up, clotted with blood where he had torn it earlier making breakfast, but it was knitting together in places—healing slowly but surely.

“It looks okay,” she murmured and gently touched his chest. His flesh was warm and rough beneath her fingers, laced with scars and faint bruises. The big fruit-like bite wounds were healing slowly as well into large cratered moon scars. “Do you want anything for the pain?”

“No, I’m okay,” he murmured and pressed the flat of his hand to his chest inches from hers. He gasped a little at the pressure. “It looks okay.”

Maka nodded and her eyes strayed to the collar at his throat. Should she take it off? 

“Maka?” Soul murmured.

She pulled her hand back sharply and folded her fingers together. “Why don’t you take a shower? Maybe that will make you feel better.”

He nodded. “That’d be nice…”

Maka smiled faintly as he gathered his shirt and the bandages from the coffee table and limped off. She got a clear look at his bare back and noticed a dark smudge going from his shoulder blade. From here, it looked almost like musical notes and a big E in fancy calligraphy. Then, the bathroom door closed softly and the water started running and Maka turned on the television to distract herself, wondering if that dark smudge was really a tattoo or just a weird bruise. With the way his body looked, it could have gone either way.

…

“So, you have it then?” Yuca asked Kuro and languidly crossed her long bare legs. Kami’s naked body was strewn on the floor before her like a used little doll, bloody and beaten. 

When they threatened to gouge out her eyes as they had done to one of her friends, Mari Mjolnir’s, she caved. They had always known where her precious little daughter lived, but were uncertain if the meddlesome ex-husband lived with her, dangerously protective. But, now they knew that Maka lived alone save the company of a single slave—him?—and could begin working immediately. 

“Yes, Master,” Kuro said.

Yuca took it from his hands and rolled it over in her long fingers. “Such a small thing…”

“Evvverything isss readddy,” Nero hissed.

“Good, good, very good.” Yuca laughed softly in the darkness.

X X X

Yay! Soul got some shoes! Next order of business…

I’ve noticed that you all review badly on the weekends. Why is that?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	15. The Return of Yuca Kishin!

This is kind of a short chapter, but things are starting to pick up on me… AHEAD of schedule! Come back, plot! *runs off screaming like a moron* Come back here right now! You listen to me! I am the writer and I order you to listen!

All the plot issues aside…

X X X

Spirit Albarn and Mari Mjolnir left bright and early that morning, per Lord Death’s instructions. Lord Death promised to look after things in their absence, including watching over Maka and Soul in case Yuca sent anything ugly their way. They piled into Spirit’s car with a small overnight bag each and returned to the site where they had fought Kami’s twin sister, Yuca. The drive was perilously long, but they arrived just as dusk was falling. 

As before, Yuca’s simple house was perched like an ugly boil on the face of the colorful sunset sky. It was deceptively ordinary with a sagging once-white now-pocked picket fence and a once-burgeoning garden that was now all full of dead roses. The windows were all boarded over, white lace curtains peeking out on the edges like old tears, and the door was a mess of chains, locks, and old ‘Crime Scene, Do Not Cross’ tape that had faded.

“This is one place I hoped never to see again,” Mari said as she got out of the car.

“I hear you,” Spirit said and shivered in the night chill. He was still only wearing his favorite suit, but Mari had been smart enough to bring a jacket. “It looks the same as I remember it.”

“Yeah, black and ugly,” she said sarcastically. “Let’s get this over with.”

Then, with the typical bravery of a woman whose friends and family are at stake, Mari marched on ahead on Spirit. She produced bolt cutters from a pocket of her coat, hacked off the chains and lock on the big castle door, pushed them open, and barged inside. Spirit raced after her, catching her elbow before she could get to far ahead of him.

“This way!” Mari said flatly and started to rocket down a hallway to their right.

Spirit grabbed her arm again. “Mari, it’s this way,” he said with a sigh. Man, she was still as lost and confused as ever.

“Oh, really?” she asked him and laughed uneasily. “Silly me…”

Together, they wondered the house again, but the entire place was dark and deserted. They went into the basement where the four of them, plus Kami of course, had fought Yuca before but it was deserted as well save a lot of dust and the skeleton of a rat.

“There’s no one here,” Mari said softly. 

“Do you think that’s a good sign?” Spirit asked.

She rolled her narrow shoulders and touched her damaged eye. Was she remembering when Yuca had pushed her horrible fingers right into Mari’s face, pulled out that eye, and ate it in one content bite? “I don’t know. There’s no way to ever be certain with Yuca,” she hesitated. “Spirit, do you think there’s any way she can still be alive?” 

Spirit really didn’t want to talk about this right now. “I don’t know, Mari. I wish I could be sure, but we never found her body or the bodies of her minions. It’s feasible that she escaped us.”

Mari hugged herself and toed the dead rat. “I was afraid of that,” she whispered.

Spirit wanted to put his arm around her, but he couldn’t. In this place, in the basement of this normal house, he had held Kami for the last time and that was all he could think about. “Come on, Mari,” he said instead. “Let’s look around a little bit more.”

Together, Mari and Spirit explored the entire house but it was all equally deserted with no signs of anyone or anything—especially not Yuca. There was a lot of old blood from that last battle and a lot of dead rats, but not much else. In the last room they looked in, the bathroom oddly enough, there was a message scrawled in the dust of the mirror. It was a single word—YUCA—and that was enough of a warning. Finally, they caught each other’s eyes, nodded, and left into the darkness of the night. Behind them, the normal little house though decrepit with age and lack of care remained a dark shadow on their minds and hearts, on their souls and old wounds. 

There was no doubt about it. 

Yuca was alive.

Damn it!

…

Ragnarok fisted his hand in Chrona’s violet tresses and pulled his face out of the carpet. Choking and spitting up blood, Chrona sobbed and hugged himself tightly as if to keep his body held together. Ragnarok pulled Chrona’s head back by the hair, glaring down into Chrona’s face though the fierceness was lost on the stupid slave. Chrona’s eyes were swollen so much that he couldn’t even open them anymore and he was gasping desperately for breath.

“I don’t get it,” Ragnarok hissed. “Why does she care about you so much? You’re just a slave.”

Chrona pushed his fingers through his hair, trying to take some of the pressure off his already-torn scalp. “P-please, Master, s-stop it, p-please,” he begged.

“Tell me how you get her to care!” Ragnarok demanded and shook Chrona viciously. 

“I-I don’t k-know, Master! Miss M-Maka is a nice person.”

“She’s not nice to me!”

Chrona cried out. “Please, y-you’re hurting me!”

“So?!” Ragnarok threw Chrona down on the carpet again and put his foot in the small of his slave’s back, grinding his brutalized body down into the floor. “Maka never bats an eyelash at me! She has always given all her attention to you. Why?!”

“I-I d-don’t k-know, Master,” Chrona sobbed.

“Why?!”

“I don’t know!”

Ragnarok dragged Chrona to his feet by his hair again, shook him cruelly, and slapped him across the face for what must have been the twentieth time in just the past ten minutes. Chrona shrieked in agony, cupping has swollen battered face in his bloody hands and smearing his cheeks with crimson like tears, mingling the blood with all the tears of anguish he had already shed. “Chrona, you tell me why Maka likes you so much or I will throw your fucking worthless body out the window?”

“I don’t know!” Chrona sobbed. “Miss Maka just… she likes to comfort people and you always hurt me…”

“She only likes you because you’re hurt so much?” Ragnarok asked and lowered his fist. 

“I think so…” Chrona whispered.

“Then that’s why she likes Soul?” Ragnarok continued. He dropped Chrona on the floor and paced to the window, looking out over Death City. Dawn was breaking on the horizon, a ribbon of pale pink light just peeking over the lowest line of houses. “She only likes Soul because he’s hurt.”

“N-no,” Chrona sobbed. “Miss Maka’s too kind. I’m sure she really likes h-him… for h-him…”

“Likes HIM?!” Ragnarok shouted and whirled around to punch Chrona in the face. “Why would Maka be in love with a stupid slave like him when she could have me?! My family is rich! I'm handsome! I’m fucking scar-free!”

“Miss Maka cares about what’s inside a person,” Chrona whimpered and hugged himself tightly.

Ragnarok grabbed Chrona by his hair again and dragged him to his feet. For a moment, he wished he hadn’t beat Chrona’s face so badly so he could leer down at him and make him squirm in fear. “Are you saying there’s more inside that worthless slave or inside you than there is in me?! Am I not good enough for Maka, is that it?!” 

Chrona cried out in agony, warding off his abusive master with outstretched hands. “No, no! That’s not it at all! Miss Maka doesn’t know what she’s missing!” And for the first time ever, weak Chrona caved where Maka was concerned. “I’m sure she dreams about you, Master!” He shouted those horrible things about Maka because he was tired of being hurt and being scared all the time. He just wanted all the pain to stop! ‘Miss Maka, I’m so sorry,’ Chrona thought and cowered into the carpet.

…

Death the Kid just got off the phone with his father, flopped down on the sofa with a heavy sigh, and scrubbed his face with his hands. How was he supposed to win Maka’s good graces back? It was clear he had screwed up greatly when he had assumed she wanted to be friends with other people who treated their slaves well. Maka wasn’t someone who wanted to submit to anyone’s control and it was very clear that Kid was in charge of their little group, gathering his friends together like a cult or fraternity. He didn’t know how he was going to win her back, especially in light of her fight with Ragnarok. They couldn’t possibly be friends anymore and Maka was probably feeling abandoned and defensive. 

“Liz,” Kid called and waited patiently.

Within three minutes, the older slave walked into the living room with two glasses of iced tea and a small smile. She sat down beside him and put one of the glasses into his white hands. “Is something wrong, Kid?” she asked.

“Where’s Patty?” 

“Making a mess in the kitchen. Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kid was quiet for a moment, looking into the swirl of ice and lemon inside his glass as if it held the answer to winning Maka back. Finally, he took a small sip and stared out the window at the brightness of the dawn beyond the glass.

Beside him, Liz shifted. “Kid?”

“Huh?”

“Is something wrong?”

“You remember Maka Albarn, right?”

“Of course,” she said softly. 

“Well, my father is very concerned for her wellbeing and wants us to stay close to her, but you remember when I brought her to the café and she stormed out?” Kid asked and leaned forward to set his glass of iced tea on the coffee table. 

“I don’t think Maka likes to be under anyone’s thumb, even one as nice as yours,” Liz said softly.

“Yeah, well, anything my father is concerned about must be big.”

“What should we do?” Liz asked him.

“Well, I was hoping you’d go and talk to her. You know, see if you can convince her to give us another chance. Would you do that for me, Liz?”

“I’m only a slave,” Liz whispered. “Are you sure she’ll listen to me?”

“You could bring Tsubaki with you.”

“But BlackStar—”

“So bring him over here,” he said with a sigh and scratched his head. “I’ll… sit on him or duct tape him to a chair… or something… I’ll think of something.”

Liz cracked a smile. “Yes, I’d be happy to, Kid!”

…

Maka waited until Soul started cooking breakfast before closing herself in the bathroom with her laptop and locked the door for the first time ever. She didn’t want Soul to know what she was doing—especially since it concerned him. Between the argument she had had with him after they stormed out of the café and seeing what was either a bruise or a tattoo along his shoulder blade, she was impossibly curious. She just had to know what that was on his body and if it meant anything. So, like any good teenager, she Googled it.  
It took several tries and different descriptions, but she finally found something that appeared promising—the Evans Family. 

They were a rich family of prominent musicians. The mother, Aurora Evans who played the flute sweetly and delicately. The father, Dante Evans who played the saxophone loud and with a lot of expended breath. And single son, Wes Evans who played the violin because it sounded like a cry. Skimming their website, she discovered that Wes was a very sick young man. He suffered from leukemia, but it only aided his musical ability with depth and sadness. It seemed Aurora had had another son, but he died at a young age.

Maka searched for a tattoo or symbol affiliated with the Evans Family.

Finally, she found a mark that looked incredibly similar to the one she had seen on Soul’s body. (Though there was still a chance the mark was just a strangely delicate bruise.) She wouldn’t be able to compare without them side by side, but it looked like a cursive E and a mess of musical notes, beautiful, peeling open like the petals of a flesh flower. It was the mark of the Evans Family, but it was normally only inscribed on their musical instruments, not on the family themselves. 

Still, could Soul be part of the Evans family? 

But how was that even possible?

Soul certainly wasn’t Wes, a leukemia-ridden young man half on his deathbed with the cry of that violin in his hands. He wasn’t old enough to be the father, Dante belting out on the saxophone, either. And Aurora’s other child had died at a young age—dead! Soul definitely wasn’t dead. Even if Aurora had had another child after the death of one, surely she wouldn’t have sold him into anonymous slavery. The Evans were worth millions! They could certainly afford another child.

Maybe the mark was a fluke, Maka realized with a sigh and closed her laptop. Either it was only a bruise or something a cruel master had carved right into his skin to torment him with the thought that he would never be part of a family. Her researching was stupid. Clearly, she wasn’t going to find out anything unless Soul flat-out told her. 

There was a soft knock on the bathroom door and Maka almost had a heart attack.

“S-Soul, is something wrong?”

“No, but,” he hesitated. “Someone’s here to see you.”

“Who is it?” she asked sheepishly.

“It’s…” he stopped abruptly. 

Maka pulled open the door to check on him. “Soul?”

His handsome face was chalk-white, his crimson eyes were large with worry and something else, and he was biting his cracked lower lip. “It’s your mother…”

X X X

Who am I kidding? My plot totally got away on me and it’s so not coming back… *sigh* Oh well, it’ll work out.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	16. The Return of Kami Albarn!

I don’t have anything to say right now. 

Except that I love how everyone thinks Maka’s mom is Yuca right now. Jeez guys, paranoid, aren’t we?

X X X

Kami Albarn looked like death warmed over, giving Soul and all his bruises a run for their money. Her pretty face was chalk-pale. Her lips were chapped and split, still bleeding in places. There were dark deep circles under her emerald eyes and they had sunken way back in her head—this not sleeping thing must be contagious. Her ash-blonde hair was lackluster and hanging limp around her face. Her left hand was nothing but a bloody stump wrapped in tattered cloth that she had ripped from her shirt. Maka’s poor mother was slumped at the kitchen table when Maka charged into the room, heart in her throat. Soul caught her hand and there was something weird in his face, but she pushed him off.

“Mom!” Maka shouted and rushed to her mother’s side but there seemed to be no place she could touch that wouldn’t just cause her mother more pain. 

Kami, on the other hand, was beyond pain now. She grabbed Maka up in her arms and hugged her tightly, not caring about the blood she was getting on her daughter’s clothes. “Oh, Maka, sweetheart! I’m so glad you’re okay! I was so worried!” She pawed Maka’s hair with her severed wrist, smearing blood on Maka’s face.

“Mom! Mom! We need to get you to the hospital!” Maka said desperately, but relished her mother’s embrace. How long had it been? Five years since her mother had hugged her, since she had even seen her mother’s face, since anything! Maka began to cry, tears mixing with the blood on her pale face. She clutched her mother tightly, sobbing into her breasts. “Mom, are you okay?”

“I’ll survive,” Kami said quickly. “I’ve missed you so much!”

“I missed you too.”

“Where’s your father?”

“He went away with Miss Mari. Lord Death sent them off,” Maka explained. “Do I need to call him?”

Kami smiled and brushed Maka’s hair back from her face. “No, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be okay now. I’m here now, baby.”

There was another sudden loud knock on the front door, ringing loudly and determinedly through the house. Maka jumped and Soul shifted uneasily, slinking about like a cat in the shadows of the room. The only sound was the refrigerator humming and the echoing of the knocks.

Kami’s green eyes shot to the door and she asked, “Are you going to answer it?”

“Soul,” Maka started.

He jolted as if struck, slithered to the door, and opened it to reveal two cheerful faces. It was Death the Kid’s slave, Liz, and the café waitress, Tsubaki. The first of which hesitated for a long moment, but the latter immediately smiled broadly and introduced herself as if they were stupid enough to forget someone that quickly. It had only been two days!

The moment Tsubaki finished speaking and Liz waved shyly, Kami passed out. 

Kami fell out of her chair with a heavy thump and lay bleeding on the floor, eyes rolled back in her head. After that, all hell broke loose and there was a lot of helter-skelter action. The first one to get a hold of the situation was Soul and Tsubaki wasn’t far behind him. Together, they knelt, rolled Kami onto her back, and checked for a pulse. Finding one, Tsubaki ordered Soul to call for an ambulance and began talking to Kami in a low soothing voice as if calling her back from the rift of unconsciousness. Maka was screaming and crying, much as she had when Soul had been hurt, and Liz got both arms around her, hugging the smaller girl tightly while she cried. 

…

They were waiting in the hospital again, but a few roles had been reversed and there had been some additions to the script. Death the Kid had arrived a few minutes after the ambulance with BlackStar and Patty in tow. Tsubaki had already settled the others in the waiting room, mothering Maka gingerly as she cried. She was sitting on Maka’s right with Soul on her left while Liz lingered at the door to signal Kid and tell him what had happened. 

Immediately, Kid went off to call his father.

Liz put her arm around Patty, guided her to sit on Tsubaki’s other side, pushed BlackStar into a seat as well, and gave Tsubaki the remote for BlackStar’s collar. Then, she sat down beside her sister. In silence, they watched Kid’s back as he talked to his father at the row of payphones. The only sound in the deserted waiting room was Maka softly crying and Tsubaki whispering comfort to her. Soul was quiet beside his master, crimson eyes dark and lowered.

Finally, Dr Stein came again through the swinging doors and came right over to them. “Maka?” he began.

She shuddered and then lifted her tear-stained face. “Mom’s okay, right?” she whispered. “Please, tell me she’s okay!”

Stein took off his glasses and tucked them into his pocket. “Yes, she’s fine,” he said.

Maka let out a sharp sigh of relief. “Can I see her?”

“Of course,” Stein told her.

Maka jumped to her feet, wiped her face with her hands, and began to walk away. Soul followed her with his eyes, looking as if he wanted to jump up and go with her, but he didn’t. Tsubaki gently touched his shoulder and smiled softly, but Soul shivered away under her hand. His back pressed against the far edge of the chair as if to escape. His scarlet eyes darted from Tsubaki to Stein to the swinging doors Maka had gone through and back to Tsubaki’s worried face.

“Soul?” Tsubaki whispered. “Is something wrong?”

Stein paced over to Kid, dipped his head, and the two of them whispered together for a long moment. Soul never took his eyes off of them, not until they parted and Stein ducked back into the swinging doors and Kid came to sit with Liz and Patty. 

“Soul?” Tsubaki repeated.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he said softly and put his hand to the old wound on his chest.

…

Maka Albarn took a seat at her mother’s side. Kami looked a little better now that all the blood had been cleaned from her body and her many wounds bandaged neatly, but the whiteness of the bed and the room made her look like a ghost. Silently, she took her mother’s remaining hand and rubbed it gently between her palms. Kami stirred slightly, but didn’t wake. Her flesh was cool and rough, but Maka didn’t know if that was different from how it usually felt. 

Five years…

For five years, Maka had only received postcards at strange hours of the morning and the occasional gift from the far corners of the world. She hadn’t seen her mother even in a photograph for five years and now she was back, hurt and unconscious and in the hospital, but back none the less. It was like a strange dream come true. 

“Everything’s going to be okay, Mom,” Maka said softly.

…

In the buttery light of midday, Lord Death arrived quickly and met Dr Stein outside Death Hospital. The good doctor was smoking as usual, but his pale scarred face was grim even as he sucked in tar and toxins. Lord Death’s handsome face was bright as usual, but there was a strange edge in his normally cheerful voice. 

“Kami’s back?” Lord Death said eagerly.

Stein lit another cigarette. 

“Dr Stein?” Lord Death repeated. “Is Kami Albarn really here?”

“Her hand’s been cut off.”

“Then there’s no doubt—”

Stein nodded. 

“—Yuca’s alive.”

“Where are Spirit and Mari?” Stein asked.

“They’re on their way back. They should be here by dinner time.”

“Did they find anything?”

Lord Death nodded. “Yuca’s name was written on the mirror in the dust.”

Stein took a shuddering drag on his cancer-stick.

“Can you be certain that’s Kami in there?” Lord Death said suddenly. “They are twins, after all.”

Stein shook his grey head. “I know Kami has a scar on her left hand, but that hand’s been cut off. I can’t tell them apart. Maybe Spirit could, but I can’t…”

Lord Death scrubbed his face with his hands. 

“What can we do?” Stein asked. “This is dangerous.”

“Nothing,” Lord Death said softly. “Until we’re certain it’s not Kami, we must treat her like Kami. We have no proof that it’s Yuca.”

“What about Maka?” Stein asked. “I’m afraid for her. Things are getting out of control.”

“I think they’ve always been out of control. Face it, Stein,” Lord Death said firmly. “Yuca’s been plotting this all along, since we fought her in that house five years ago. She was always going to return for Maka.”

Stein stubbed out his cigarette, something he had never done before, and put his hands in his pockets. “So, he’s our only hope then?”

“So it would seem.”

They were silent, standing together like twin guardian statues at the rear entrance of Death Hospital where the ambulance was parked. The city was still and bathed in warm bright light. It didn’t look like anything could possibly be wrong on a beautiful sunny day like this. The day was just too good and far too short.

…

Maka woke suddenly when someone put something warm and heavy over her shoulders. She hadn’t realized that she had fallen asleep at her mother’s bedside, cried herself to sleep again actually, and everything was stiff and sore now. Groaning, she put her hand over the hand on her shoulder and mumbled something that might have been, “Soul?” but it was hard to tell. Either way, it wasn’t her precious red-eyed silver-haired shark-toothed slave. It was only her papa, Spirit Albarn, slipping out of his suit jacket and draping it over her shoulders.

“Papa?” Maka murmured.

“Oh, sweetie, I didn’t want to wake you,” Spirit said with a small smile. 

Maka rubbed her eyes. “I don’t sleep much anyway.”

Spirit’s face grew sad. “I know, baby…”

“How’s Mom?”

Spirit crouched beside the bed, took Kami’s severed wrist in his hands, and sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Maka. She’s been through a lot. We probably won’t know anything for sure until she wakes up,” he said. Then, with a sigh, he tucked her arm beneath the covers. “Now, tell me Maka, she came to the house?”

Maka nodded.

“What did she do? What did she say?”

“Well, she asked where you were. And we might have said a few other things, but then Tsubaki knocked on the door and when Soul answered it, Mom passed out. She fell out of her chair and there was a lot of blood.” Maka’s green eyes filled with tears. “I thought she was dead.”

Quietly, Spirit pulled his small daughter into his strong embrace and held her while she cried. They sat like that for a long time until Maka cried herself out and pushed back from her father’s warm arms. His heartbeat had been strong and soothing against the shell of her ear and she didn’t really want to pull away, but she had to. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She had things to do, people to take care of, dinner to make, a mother to watch over, and a father to yell at. Heck, she owned a slave now! She couldn’t go falling apart at the seams at the first sign of a crisis.

“What time is it, Papa?” she asked and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. 

Spirit pulled the jacket tighter around her shoulders. “Almost six.”

“Is everyone still out there? Waiting?”

He shook his head, red hair like blood against his damp cheeks. “No, Lord Death and Kid took everyone home a while ago.”

“Oh…”

“But Soul’s still out there. He’s waiting for you.”

“Soul is?” Maka whispered softly.

“Yeah, he insisted on staying.”

She smiled faintly and hugged her father’s jacket closer around herself. So, Soul had stayed…

“Does that make you happy, Maka?”

Sharply, she turned her head away, hiding her face from him. “He’s only a slave, Papa.”

Spirit wanted to say something to his daughter—to confess the things that had happened, that he had been through, and what was happening now—but he couldn’t. Maka was only a child and the last thing she needed right now was more troubles heaped on her plate. Instead, he coolly said, “Yes, I suppose that’s all he is, Maka.” And he saw her bite down on her mouth as if to keep words bottled up inside herself. He wished she would just let it out, confide in her father, but Kami’s cheating-divorce-lie had barred them. Maka wouldn’t trust him anymore even though there was no reason for her not to. But she didn’t know that, did she? 

Silently, Spirit watched Maka shrug out of his jacket even though she shivered, wave slightly, and leave the hospital room. He only remained in Kami’s room for a few more minutes, scanning her sleeping face for signs of his wife’s presence. Then, he left quickly—after all, he didn’t know for certain if this woman was Kami, his beloved, or Yuca, everyone’s enemy. 

Who was the woman lying injured in this hospital bed? Yuca or Kami?

It made sense for it to be Kami, escaped from Yuca’s clutches injured and tattered. But it wasn’t above Yuca to hurt herself to weasel her way into their hearts and minds again. The severed left hand was what was really throwing Spirit off. Kami had a scar on her left hand, the only mark that distinguished her from Yuca, and now that hand was missing. It was all so incredibly strange and dangerous. What was going to happen now?

…

As her father had said, Soul was waiting in the ugly waiting room. It looked like he had fallen asleep huddled deep in someone’s borrowed jacket with his long legs drawn up against his chest and both arms wrapped around them tightly. His face was resting on his bent knees, cheek pushed up by the weight of his head, and his eyes were moving rapidly beneath the smooth creamy lids. For a moment, Maka stood watching him, smiling softly. Then, as if she had whispered his name, his eyes slid open and he met her eyes.

“Maka?”

“Hey, Soul. You didn’t have to stay.”

“But I wanted to,” he murmured and lifted his face from his knees. 

The seam of his jeans had left a pattern on his cheek. Maka reached out her hand and he watched her nervously but didn’t pull away. Silently, she traced her fingertip down the mark and allowed her finger to rest at the corner of his mouth. The corner of his lips was soft and warm and she felt a slight pulse there. His crimson eyes met her emerald ones and held irrevocably, unable to pull away. It felt as if he was conveying something to her—a strange softness, a tinge of fear, and a small plea not to be hurt. 

As if in a trance, she let her finger wander across his lower lip until it came to rest on the ugly split that was slowly healing at the very middle of his mouth. She pushed her finger up a little, into the seam of his soft lips, and he actually opened his mouth a little. She felt the smooth hardness of his teeth against her skin and the heat of his mouth around her fingertip. Hesitantly, she felt the jagged filed-sharp edges of his teeth like vampire fangs and shivered slightly. His tongue touched her finger, pushing it away from his teeth.

“How did this happen?”

The contact of their eyes was broken and Soul looked away. He was silent, but she didn’t think it was because of her finger in his mouth.

“Were you born like that?”

Slowly, he lifted his fingers to her wrist, clasped it gingerly, and pulled her hand away from his mouth. He stared at her damp fingertip, prickled slightly with blood from his dangerously-sharp teeth, and wiped it on his sleeve.

“Soul?”

“No.”

“What?” Maka asked him and stepped closer to him. She could feel the heat coming off of his body even in the cold hospital.

Soul was still carefully holding her hand by the wrist, ugly scarred twisted fingers exploring her soft flesh almost timidly. He traced his thumb over her knuckles, slid it between her fingers, over the rounded nail, and finally over her soft palm. Finally, he said softly, “I wasn’t… born with teeth like this…”

“How’d it happen?”

“They were filed.”

“Did it hurt, Soul?”

“Yes. Very much…”

Maka stared at her hand in his. Her fingers looked so thin and brittle, fragile with nails like glass, and veins showing blue beneath her milk-white flesh. His fingers were thick and strong, covered in calluses and scabs from working, and tanned to a rich caramel color. They were so different yet Maka felt like there was something beautiful about his twisted hands as if he had some small beautiful talent. 

“Soul, do you paint by any chance?”

His silver brow lifted. “Paint?”

Maka’s cheek flushed. What was she thinking? He was a slave! As if he had time for strange and beautiful talents like painting! “Nothing, Soul,” she said quickly. “Never mind.” She tried to pull her hand away from his, but he held her tightly.

“What made you say that?”

“I… I don’t really know. It’s just… your hands—”

He let go abruptly, stuffing them into his armpits.

“—they’re strange,” Maka continued. She already missed the warmth of his grip. “I feel like… they’re beautiful… or you have some kind of beautiful talent with them… That’s silly right?”

He lowered his crimson eyes. “Yeah, I guess so…”

“Unless, Soul, do you have a weird talent?”

For a long moment, he was quiet and chewed at his lower lip. Maka wanted to reach out and touch his mouth again, but she restrained herself. She had already invaded Soul’s personal space enough for one afternoon and she wasn’t sure how long he’d put up with it. She didn’t want to see him pull away again.

“Soul?”

“I… I do…”

Maka’s breath caught. “W-what was it?”

“I… I used to play the piano…”

“The piano?” Maka whispered. Her mind raced back to the mark she had seen on his body—the strange cursive E and the musical notes—the mark of the Evans Family. “Soul, are you—?” She cut herself off because his face looked so pale and pained. He was clearly suffering just talking about this so she bit her lip and forced the curiosity into the back of her mind. “Come on,” she said instead. “It’s late. We should be getting home.”

Soul nodded and rose from the chair. 

Maka hesitated for a moment and then reached out to take his hand. At the first brush of her fingers against his palm, he pulled his hand away but Maka made a small sound. He glanced back at her and something must have shown on her face because he gently took her hand. Their fingers threaded together perfectly and Soul’s grip was blessedly warm against her chilled skin. Silently, they left Death Hospital and began walking home together in the dark.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	17. Lord Death Allows a CHOICE

I still have nothing to say. It’s much less hot now.

Not too much going on in this chapter. It’s kind of a filler with a bunch of explanation, but it’s important so read it!

X X X

In two days, Dr Franken Stein declared Kami Albarn well enough to leave the hospital. While Spirit Albarn brought his daughter and ex-wife home, trailed by Maka’s sweet slave Soul, Lord Death called the children to his office for an emergency meeting. He figured he may as well cut to the chase and tell them what was going on. (Whether or not Spirit decided to tell Maka what was going on was up to him and he already knew Spirit wouldn’t tell Maka anything until he absolutely had to.) But Lord Death had already asked Kid to watch over Maka and he didn’t want his son charging blindly into a dangerous situation. And he knew what he told Kid, Kid would tell Liz and Patty, and Liz would tell her best friend Tsubaki, and Tsubaki would tell noisy BlackStar. So, he may as well just tell them all at once and save them the confusing game of telephone.

Lord Death folded his hands and began, “Well, I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called you here.”

“Indeed, Father,” Kid said from his preferred position across from his father. Liz and Patty were seated on either side of him, smiling softly. They loved Lord Death and were always happy to be near him even under strange unknown meetings under less-than-desirable circumstances. “What’s going on?”

Tsubaki was seated beside Liz and BlackStar was standing behind her chair with both large hands on her small shoulders. In her soothing relaxing voice, she asked, “Please, Lord Death, could you tell us why we’re here?”

Lord Death sighed and began slowly, “None of you know this—” he met his son’s golden eyes “—not even you Kid. But five years ago, Kami and Spirit Albarn, Dr Franken Stein, Mari Mjolnir, and myself fought the fabled ‘woman scorned.’ We fought Kami’s twin sister, Yuca Kishin.”

“Kami is Maka’s mother, right?” Kid asked.

Lord Death nodded. “Yuca was always the shadows to Kami’s light. But she didn’t become truly twisted until after her twin married Spirit though she kept herself under control. It only blew up after Kami gave birth to Maka and Yuca lost her mind.”

“You said Yuca was ‘the woman scorned,’ what do you mean by that?” Kid interrupted. 

“I’m getting to that,” Lord Death continued. “Yuca’s just a beautiful as Kami, but her personality is poisonous. She can make any man love her, but they don’t really love her. They’re only trapped in her control because she gives them her body and makes them fly out of their own. What Yuca really wants is someone she can own body and soul.”

“Why doesn’t she just buy a slave?” Tsubaki asked.

“She doesn’t want a slave. She wants a child.”

“A child?” Kid repeated.

Liz pressed her hands to her stomach, thinking of the child she had lost to violence and bad luck, and Kid tenderly touched her knee under the table. She smiled faintly at him and covered his hand with her own. Patty, in a lucid moment, reached around Kid to touch her sister’s shoulder, but her brain damage quickly took he rover again and she laughed raucously for no reason.

“Yes,” Lord Death said. “She wants someone she can raise to be like her.”

“Why can’t she just have one?” Liz whispered.

Lord Death ran his hand through his hair. “You see, Yuca is slightly less fertile than a sand trap.”

Liz flinched. 

“Father—”

“Let me finish,” Lord Death said softly and held up his hand. “That’s why Yuca decided she despised her twin sister. She wanted to take Kami’s place in the family. She wanted Spirit and Maka to be hers. And since she is Kami’s twin, she just may have gotten away with it, but Kami knew what her twin was planning. Twins are funny that way. They sense so much about each other that it’s spooky. She came to me and told me what was happening and I arranged to help her. Mari Mjolnir is not only a close friend of Kami’s but something of a bodyguard. I arranged for Mari to move in with the Albarns for a while under the ruse of being Maka’s nanny.”

“It must not have worked,” Kid said flatly.

“It didn’t,” Lord Death agreed. “Yuca stole Maka from her bed when she was ten regardless and fled to her house outside of Death City. Before we got there, Yuca had implanted young Maka with what she affectionately calls her ‘Nightmare.’”

“Her ‘Nightmare’?”

“Yuca has this affect where she can share her nightmares through a single drop of blood spread into the other person’s blood stream. Yuca and Kami have both shared nightmares for their entire lives. Hence why Kami is an insomniac.”

“The nightmares?”

“Yes.”

“Maka’s an insomniac, too.” 

“Yes, she is. Her mother and Dr Stein somehow made it so Maka was an insomniac like her mother so that Yuca’s nightmares cannot reach her. Maybe hypnotic suggestion?”

“Is that possible?”

Lord Death rolled his shoulders. “It seems to be. Anyway, after Yuca stole Maka from Kami and Spirit, they called me and we immediately decided that Yuca needed to be stopped once and for all. Mari, Stein, Kami, Spirit, and I followed Yuca to her home to take back Maka and destroy her.”

“You must not have succeeded.”

Lord Death shook his head. “We didn’t,” he admitted. “Somehow, Yuca survived. The man who attacked Maka and Soul is probably one of the men Yuca has under her thumb. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has even more.” He took a deep breath. “Yuca’s been in hiding these past five years, just waiting for the right moment to strike back at us.”

“If you thought Yuca was dead, how come Kami didn’t come home?” Tsubaki asked.

“The nightmares. Kami was worried for her daughter so she and Spirit agreed to split up under the ruse of Spirit cheating on her. Kami would leave the city and Spirit would remain here with Maka,” Lord Death explained. “That and I think none of us actually believed Yuca was dead. We never found her body after we fought her. We couldn’t even find the bodies of her cronies. It was as if they had vanished into thin air, without a trace.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Kid said and everyone turned to face him. “If Maka was ten when this happened, why doesn’t she remember any of this?”

“Her mother and Stein once again altered her. They told me the used hypnotism to block Maka’s memories of what happened.”

“Maka’s a freaking experiment!” BlackStar shouted. His voice was so loud in the uneasy silence that Patty fell out of her chair with a childish scream. 

“BlackStar!” Tsubaki shouted and grabbed the remote from her pocket. Sternly, she said, “Be quiet right now or I’ll hit the button.”

Grudgingly, BlackStar closed his mouth.

“Why are you telling us this?” Kid asked.

Lord Death let out a deep sigh and rubbed his face. “Because Yuca’s back.”

“We gathered that.” Kid rolled his tense shoulders. “What can we do?”

“We need to help her,” Liz said softly.

“We can’t just leave Maka,” Tsubaki said. “She’s so sweet.”

“I’m going to surpass GOD! If anyone can save Maka, it’s me!” BlackStar shouted at the top of his lungs. (Tsubaki gave him a tired look, but didn’t order him to be quiet.)

Patty laughed and hugged herself. “Maka! Maka!”

Lord Death smiled at these wonderful children. Even knowing the dangers, they weren’t going to abandon anyone and Maka wasn’t even quite their friend yet. “I didn’t want anyone to go blindly into this. I thought it best to inform you all and let you make your own decisions.”

“We appreciate it,” Kid said and stood up.

“Wait, there’s one more thing!”

“What is it?” Tsubaki asked.

“It’s her slave, Soul.”

“What about him?”

Lord Death lowered his eyes. How could he put this in a way that didn’t sound like he was a crazy psychic speaking about the future? “He’s… he’s just a slave. No one should sacrifice themselves for him.”

“Father!” Kid shouted, but Lord Death couldn’t take it back and he couldn’t say what he had intended to. “How could you say that?!”

Silently, he watched as his son gathered his friends and left the room in a tizzy. Then, he put his face in his hands and wondered where this had all gone so wrong. Well, he had done all he could and that was all anyone could really ask of him. The door to his office slammed shut and he heard BlackStar begin to yell in the hallway. A smile touched Lord Death’s lips. They were such strong and quirky kids. Maybe everything would turn out alright after all.

…

Maka and Soul helped ease Kami into Maka’s freshly-made bed. Spirit lingered in the threshold, gazing wonderingly at his daughter’s bedroom. He hadn’t seen it in years! (Wow, Maka had no boy band posters or anything else especially teenage-girly. Wow!) Soul stepped back from the bed, forced to remain close by Maka’s light grip on his fingers. She was always touching him now it seemed—not that he was complaining. He liked to be touched when it didn’t hurt, but her touch was so soft that he sometimes forgot she was there. Maka gave his hand a small squeeze and then slid her hand into the pocket of her jeans. Soul almost reached after her, but he didn’t.

“Mom, do you need anything?” Maka asked and pulled the covers up over her mother’s legs, tucking her in like a child. 

“No, thank you sweetheart, I’m fine,” Kami said with a pained smile. She tucked some ash-blonde hair behind her ear with her good hand and scratched the air where the other one used to be absently. She still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that it was gone. “I’d just like to rest today, baby.”

Maka uneasily watched her mother grasping for the missing hand. “Okay, then, I’ll leave you to rest, Mom,” she said finally. Then, she turned to leave the room, already reaching for Soul again, but Kami caught her other hand. 

Her face was cutely pink. “Actually, Maka, would you stay with me for a while? Just talk to me for a little while?”

Maka smiled and turned away from Soul. “Of course Mom!”

“Maka?” Soul murmured.

“You can go out in the living room, Soul,” Maka said with a smile. “Show Papa out, please.”

He nodded and closed the door softly behind himself. Maka’s sweet voice drifted through the door and Kami laughed weakly. It seemed as if nothing was wrong and no one else seemed bothered by Kami’s return. Then why did Soul feel so edgy? He felt like something was very wrong!

“Soul?”

He jumped and turned to face Maka’s father. “Y-yes?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No nothing. Maka asked me to show you out.”

“Actually, I was hoping to talk to you quickly.”

Soul nodded because what else could he do? He couldn’t say ‘No!’ and throw out his man and that woman no matter how badly he wanted to. He was only a slave and they were Maka’s parents. He bit his tongue and tasted blood within seconds on his razor-sharp teeth. 

“Listen, Soul, there are some… weird things going on in this family…”

Soul bit his lip.

Spirit reached out to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, but Soul shied away. Weird, he and Maka were practically glued at the hand yet he was shrinking away from Spirit’s touch. “I need you to protect my daughter, Soul.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said softly and shuffled so the couch was between them.

“That’s not good enough!” Spirit said sharply. “I need you to protect her with your life.”

Soul’s back hit the wall and he hadn’t even realized Spirit was advancing on him. “W-why me?”

Spirit put both hands on Soul’s shoulders and was amazed by the thin frailness of Soul’s body. God, how was this kid even still alive? His body was all bones and less. “Just, protect my daughter, Soul, and maybe I can give you something you’ve lost.”

Soul’s damaged hands rolled into fists. “You can’t…”

“Would you like that?”

He closed his eyes tightly, holding his hands to his chest. “I’ll… do what I can,” he said again.

Spirit sighed heavily. “I guess that’s all I can ask of you, right?”

Soul bit his lip. 

“Look at it this way, Soul, if anything happens to my daughter, you’re going back to the warehouse.” Then, with a bang, the wind grabbed the front door and slammed it behind Spirit. 

Soul slid to his knees, cradling his hands against his chest, and sucked in several deep greedy breaths. In Maka’s room, he heard more laughter and it sounded evil and mocking to his ears. Quickly, he darted into the kitchen and began to rattle pots and pans much more than necessary as he cooked.

…

Soul was busily stirring gravy with so much noise that he didn’t hear Maka come into the kitchen until she pulled out a chair at the already-set table with a screech. He practically jumped out of his skin and whirled to face her with a desperate breath in his mouth.

“M-Maka?” he gasped.

“Mom’s asleep,” Maka said cheerfully. Then, she took in his worried eyes and pale face. “Soul, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m okay,” he said quickly.

Maka looked at him suspiciously, but didn’t say anything else about it. “So, what’s for dinner?”

“I found a chicken in the freezer. I made mashed potatoes and some gravy. I hope that’s alright.”

“That sounds delicious. I’m starving,” she said cheerfully. Then, she grinned at Soul and he felt the claws of unease that had been clutching at him begin to loosen. He didn’t know what was going on, but Maka’s soft smile soothed him inexplicably. He almost smiled back, but stopped himself when he thought of his razor-sharp teeth. He had a scary smile and he didn’t want to frighten Maka, not when she was so happy and kind and sweet to him. “Soul?”

He stirred the gravy and added a pinch of flour. “Yes?”

“Do you mind that I’m sleeping out in the living room with you?” She paused and rephrased that. “What I mean is do you mind that I’ll be out in the living room not sleeping all night?”

“I don’t mind,” he said softly. 

“Are you sure because I can work something else out.”

“It’s fine,” he repeated and turned to look at her. “I can sleep through anything.”

Maka narrowed her green eyes. “I’m so jealous. I hope you don’t snore. I might have to smother you!”

He knew she was joking and his lips curved slightly. “I don’t snore,” he said.

“That’s good!”

For a while, comfortable silence stretched between them while Soul cooked and Maka thought happily about her mother’s return—battered to not. Then, Soul took out the chicken and slid it across the table. The aroma hit Maka full in the face and she wondered if she started drooling. Soul put down a large bowl of mashed potatoes and a dish of gravy next. Then, he sat down at the table across from her and spread his ugly hands—hands that used to play piano—and asked, “Is this alright?”

“Soul, it looks delicious!”

This time, he couldn’t help the smile that squeezed past his lips. Maka gasped and he hid the smile quickly.

“No, no! What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were smiling and then you stopped.”

“I have a… scary smile…”

Maka reached across the table and touched his hand. “No you don’t. Who told you that?”

He looked away sharply. “That’s why they filed my teeth.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I used to have a nice smile, but they filed my teeth so I’d look like a monster… so I couldn’t smile anymore…”

“Soul, please—”

“Don’t ask me to smile, Maka,” he whispered. “I can’t do it.”

“Please?”

He shook his head. 

Suddenly, Maka wasn’t hungry anymore, but she put food onto her plate anyway and picked at it. After a moment, Soul began to eat as well, but he had a strange expression in his eyes and mouth. He looked on edge, unnerved, but also incredibly sad. 

Someone had filed his teeth to give him an ugly smile… What kind of life had Soul lived? What a horrible thing…

“Soul?”

“Yes?”

“Did they change anything else about you besides your teeth?”

He shook his head sadly, silver hair feathering against his cheeks. “They didn’t need to… I already look like a monster.”

“Soul—”

“You can’t deny it,” he said coldly. “Just look at me!” He jumped up from the table, knocking his chair over with a clatter and spread his arms. “Look at me!”

“I am, Soul,” she whispered.

He dug his hands through his hair, yanking at the silvery strands. “I look like a monster, Maka. I didn’t even need the teeth… I have red eyes and white hair, but I used to be able to smile and I didn’t look to frightening, but then they filed my teeth. Now, I look even more like a monster.”

“Soul,” she murmured. 

Maka stood from the table and walked around it. She opened her arms and tried to catch Soul in them, but he just kept backing away until there was nowhere else for him to go. His back hit the wall and he let out a small cry as if hurt by it. Then, Maka hugged him gently and he struggled against her for a moment, pushing helplessly at her shoulders, but she tucked her head down against his chest and just held him. Finally, he put his arms around her and let out his breath. 

“Why are you like this?” he whispered.

“Like what?”

“You’re so kind.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt anymore. You don’t deserve it, Soul…”

“Why not?” he begged her. “Why don’t I deserve to be hurt?”

Maka cupped his face gently. “Because… you’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met and,” she smiled, “you’re a great cook.”

His lips twitched and she put her fingers to the corners of his mouth quickly, pulling his lips up into half a smile.

“No, no! I saw that! You almost smiled! Come on, Soul! You can do it!”

Finally, he gave her a true honest smile. If Maka was completely honest, it was a little creepy, but she didn’t even care. Soul was smiling and, just for that, it was beautiful. Maybe later she would think about the strange and monstrous aspect of him, but right now…

“That’s beautiful, Soul.”

X X X

Okay, so there’s Yuca’s reasoning for being an evil nut-job. Not a very good one, but hey, never underestimate the fury of a woman scorned. That goes out especially to all you guys out there! You’d better watch out! (Yes, her last name was Kishin. I was running out of last name ideas. So sue me! But there will definitely be no kishin in this story.)

Questions, comments, concerns?


	18. How to Properly Sleep in the Living Room

Alright, here’s the ball… and it’s starting to roll!

X X X

Maka finished making up the couch with sheets and blankets and trailed her laptop’s cord across the living room so she would have something to do during the long endless night. Soul settled himself in his pallet of blankets and pillows in the corner, snuggling in like a small animal of some sort. Within moments of his head hitting the pillow, he was deeply asleep, breathing deep and light. True to his word, he didn’t snore at all. 

It was two in the morning when Maka began to feel slightly sleepy. Listening to Soul’s breathing had lulled her and she wasn’t even doing anything on her computer anymore. Well, nothing lost and nothing gained if she tried to sleep and couldn’t, she thought as she closed her laptop and stretched out comfortably on the couch. She pulled the blankets up to her chin and listened to Soul breathing in the darkness. Before she knew it, she had nodded off to sleep.

…

So, it was this dream again. Was it ever going to go away? How long had it been since this dream had began? Five years? Less or more? There was nothing but crushing blackness. It was all encompassing, total cave darkness, but there were sounds in the darkness. 

_Tap-tap… tap-tap… tap-tap…_

A sound in the darkness…? Repeating, over and over, endlessly. On what? How could there be a sound in this absolute blackness? There was nothing here. What could make noise here? There’s nothing but the blackness of the abyss, right?

_Laughter…_

The insane woman’s laughter was back again, echoing wildly against something. That was it, there just had to be something in this darkness to cause that echo. There had to be light somewhere, maybe just hidden behind the curtain. 

_Something had to be here in the darkness._

Maka stretched out her hands, groping along in the blackness. Suddenly, she felt cloth—curtains? She fisted her hands in the fabric and ripped it down fiercely. Behind the curtains, there was only more blackness, but abruptly both the sound of the laughter and the tap-tapping stopped dead. 

_The silence was horrible._

She broke it. “Hello?” 

No one answered her, but she wasn’t sure what she would do if someone had. What if that woman had started laughing again? Suddenly, something beneath her feet was gone—maybe she had stepped over the edge in the endless darkness—and she was plummeting down… down… down!

…

Maka woke with a start, panting and clutching the blankets on the couch. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what she was doing there. Oh, right, her mother was sleeping in her bedroom and that was Soul’s silvery head in the faint moonlit darkness snuggled deep in his blankets and that was her own ragged breathing. The nightmare… it was that same nightmare she had been having since before she could even remember. 

It was always the same. She was walking in absolute darkness and there were only those two sounds, the laughter and the tapping. Then, she would find a curtain and rip it down, but there was only more darkness behind it. Then, silence would reign and she would fall for eternity. She always woke up before she hit the bottom… if there even was a bottom. 

Shaking herself, Maka swung her feet out from under the covers and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. She knew there would be no going back to sleep but she had had a nice hour’s worth of rest.

In the darkness, there was a sudden small cry.

Startled, Maka nearly dropped her glass. “Mom!” she shouted. She slammed her glass down in the sink and rushed to her bedroom door, but the cry did not come again. Barely breathing, she stood outside the door, just listening.

All was quiet.

Cautiously, Maka edged open the door and peeked inside. Kami was resting peacefully. She was lying on her back, arms folded on her abdomen, face pale and kissed with moonlight. She looked like a corpse lying like that, but Maka could make out the steady rise and fall of her chest. Silently, Maka eased the door closed and leaned on it with a sigh.   
It was just her nightmare, getting to her, and making her nervous.

Maka returned to the kitchen, picked up her glass, and finished her milk. For a while, she stood at the window, looking out over the sight of Death City at night. It was a sight she was getting very tired of looking at. She wished she could look at her eyelids all night, but she was an insomniac—no sleeping for her.

The cry came again, sharper and louder.

And close!

The glass slipped from Maka’s hand and shattered on the floor with a horrible sound. She charged into the living room, certain that was where the sound had originated from, but everything there was quiet and still. Soul hadn’t even moved. By this time, Maka was unnerved and freaked out and she was ready to make a fool out of herself and wake Soul up just so she wasn’t alone in the darkness… just like how it was in her nightmares.

Again, that cry!

It was tantalizingly close! 

How could she possibly be missing it?

Maka grabbed Soul’s shoulder and shook him to wake him up. “Soul!”

The covers dropped down from his thin body and Maka’s heart leaped up into her throat. Soul’s chapped lips slid open and his blood-red eyes were hazy and out of focus. Blood trailed from the corner of his lips and that cry escaped his half-open mouth. The heavy collar around his throat gleamed in the darkness and the gauze around his chest was the same white of his skin. There was redness in his silver hair, like rose petals on silken sheets.

“Soul! What happened?”

Another small cry escaped him and he lifted a hand to her face. His flesh was cold and clammy, but Maka pressed him closer even so. She cupped his face in one hand and groped along his chest with the other. Blood! Where was the blood coming from? Where was he hurt?

“Soul! Soul!”

“Maka…” he whispered.

“Tell me where you’re hurt!”

He shook his head. “Dead already… Make her stop…”

“Soul!”

His eyes slid closed.

“Soul, no!” Maka shook him.

“Make her stop…” he whispered.

“Stop what?!”

Another cry escaped his mouth. “S-stop it!”

“Soul! You have to tell me what’s going on!”

He never got a chance to tell her. His eyes slipped closed and a long breath of air left his lungs. His hand dropped from her face with a thump on the floor and she felt his heart stop beating because her hand was pressed over the pulse of this throat. Then, his body turned into black sand and spread all over the floor around her. 

“No—!”

…

Maka hit the hard floor with a thump—wham! Panting, she realized she had been asleep and dreaming again. Twice in one night and that was two times too many and two times more than usual! Unless… it hadn’t really been a dream? Scrambling on hands and knees, Maka crawled her way to Soul’s pallet of blankets and pillows in the darkness. He was curled up like a small dog, but she wasn’t sure if he was breathing. Desperately, she grabbed his narrow shoulders and shook him wildly.

“Soul! Soul, wake up!”

Soul’s crimson eyes snapped open. He jolted upright in his pallet, blankets pooling in his lap, and quickly grabbed her body tightly against his own. “What’s wrong?” he whispered into her hair. He glanced around the living room, but there was only deserted darkness.

“It was only a dream,” Maka whispered and clutched him tightly. “It was only a dream! You’re alive. You’re okay…”

“What happened?”

“You were dead. You were dead, Soul!”

Carefully, he rubbed her back soothingly and Maka melted into his chest. Her body was soft and warm and shaking like a little bird. For once in his life, Soul felt strong and needed and he cradled his strange master gingerly in his arms. He whispered small soothing nothings into her hair, stroked her back, and waited for her tears to abate. After a long while, Maka’s body grew heavy in his arms and her breath was warm and moist on his throat. She was asleep and Soul was so comfortable with her in his arms that he just lay down with her. Silently, Soul slept with someone for the first time in his life and it was like a dream. He had never been so warm.

…

“BlackStar, stop it!” Tsubaki shouted and pointed her finger unhappily at her rambunctious slave. 

BlackStar, his aqua hair still wet from a shower, was hanging off the chandelier, shrieking like some kind of monkey. He had come sneaking into the bathroom, spying on Tsubaki while she was in the tub, and she had bolted right out to beat his butt. Wrapped in a moist white towel that was the farthest thing from appropriate to be chasing around in, Tsubaki threatened BlackStar some more and clutched the top of the towel up over her large breasts.

“Stop it right now!” she repeated angrily. 

BlackStar was far from listening. “My lovely Tsubaki has the body of a GODDESS!” he shrieked.

Tsubaki blushed, both embarrassed and flattered. “Stop it! BlackStar, get down from there!”

“NEVER! I want to shout it to the world how BEAUTIFUL you are under that UGLY waitress outfit!” he shrieked and cackled a joyous laugh at her plight. 

“BlackStar!” Tsubaki shouted again. “This is your last warning!”

“Bwuahahaha! Yahoo!” BlackStar laughed and continued swaying delightedly. “Tsubaki, I can see right down your towel from up here!”

Her face flamed bright red and she released her fury. “BlackStar, you SIT!” she shouted and pressed the button on the remote. 

Immediately, he crashed down onto the table beneath the chandelier in a whimpering heap. Forced into a sitting position on the table, BlackStar was forced to watch Tsubaki’s swaying hips as she returned to her bath and bolted the door this time. She was no fool. She knew he’d come creeping again and she was going to stop him effectively. She slipped the remote into a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet and set it on the rim of the tub. Then, she watched BlackStar’s shadow slinking around on the other side of the door. She slouched deeper into the water and blew some happy bubbles on the surface. BlackStar though she had the body of a goddess. She blushed cutely and smiled to herself.

…

Ragnarok was comfortable. He sighed in relief and stretched back against the headboard of his bed. Chrona was at his feet as a makeshift footstool and the stupid slave was still sobbing and crying and bleeding all over the bed. 

“Shut up,” Ragnarok muttered.

Chrona clammed up, but he could still feel him shaking like a leaf beneath his feet.

Why did Maka like Chrona so much?

More importantly, how could Ragnarok make Maka like him instead?

There was a faint knock on the window—strange because Ragnarok’s room was on the second floor. Whoever it was must be bound and determined to talk to him, so Ragnarok crossed to the curtained window and pulled back the heavy drapes. 

There was nothing but complete blackness outside the glass.

Ragnarok pushed open the window and called out, “Who’s there?”

“Dooo yooou wwwant powwwer, childdd?” a soft voice hissed.

“I want Maka Albarn,” Ragnarok said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be talking to the darkness outside one’s window.

“Evvven beeetter.”

“You can get her for me?”

“Yesss.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Yooou havvve to do somethinggg fffor meee.”

“What do you want?”

“Makkka’s ssslave Sssoul…”

Ragnarok clenched his hands into fists. “What about him?”

“Ssseperate them… kkkill himmm.”

Ragnarok grinned. “I’d be happy to.”

On the bed, Chrona’s eyes filled with tears and he pressed his hands to his battered face. He had to warn Maka, but how? 

…

Death the Kid was lying peacefully in his bed in the dark, but his mind was far from rest. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his father had told them all—about Maka Albarn and the old battle with Kami’s twin sister Yuca. That woman sounded crazy. Who were they to even attempt to take her on? Under normal circumstances, Kid would have happily left something this dangerous to his father and his well-trained Academy professors and close friends, but he had a feeling he was going to be sucked in far deeper than he planned. 

He wasn’t disappointed.

…

An earsplitting scream shattered through the darkness of the night. What time was it?! Midnight?! One?!

Maka jolted upright, half-restrained by Soul’s warm arms, and glanced desperately up into her mother’s stricken face. Soul was only a few moments behind her. When he laid eyes on Kami’s enraged face, he immediately released Maka and put his back into the corner, wincing even though nothing had happened yet. He knew that look.

“Mom!” Maka said quickly and lifted her hands in a pacifying gesture.

“What?!” Kami screamed. “What is this?! What’s going on here?! My daughter is sleeping with a slave!”

“Mom, wait! Stop! Let me explain!” Maka protested.

Kami pulled something from her pocket with her good hand, dangling it before Maka’s face like an ugly spider on a string. “This should be kept on your person at all times, young lady! It is to punish! And all slaves deserve to be punished!”

Maka’s eyes widened. “NO!” she screamed, but it was already too late.

Kami tramped her thumb down on the first button and Soul let out a horrifying scream as currents of electricity raged through his poor body. He collapsed flat on the floor, clutching his throat and writhing in agony. He couldn’t stop screaming even though he knew he was only making it worse for himself. It just hurt so badly. Every fiber of his being was being pumped with electricity, torn apart by it, shattered at the seams, and all that on top of the injuries he already had.

“Mom, stop it!” Maka screamed. 

She didn’t want to attack her mother, especially when she didn’t understand what was bringing this on. Instead, she dove for Soul and slipped her fingers under the edge of the collar. The electricity started pumping into her as well, tearing her apart at the core, but a lot of her pain was absorbed and diminished by Soul’s body. He was taking all of the agony and his eyes rolled up at her desperately. Maka bit back her cry of anguish and persisted. She pushed her fingers deeper under the collar, between his throat and the horrible current of pain.

“Mom, stop it!” she screamed. Then, on a whim, “You’re hurting me too!”

Immediately, the current cut off. Soul collapsed, shuddering violently as the final current left him and some of the pain faded. Maka gasped for breath, cradling her numb hands against her chest. What a horrible sensation! How could people do that and just watch, enjoying it and thinking it was deserved? She couldn’t imagine even seeing that again, never the less actually doing it to someone, especially not her sweet precious Soul.

Silently, Kami stared down at them and her face was crazed. Maka saw her mother’s thumb move from the first button to the second and her heart lurched into her throat. She remembered what she had installed in that button.

“Mom, no!”

Again, she was too late.

Maka whirled around to face Soul just as she saw the collar constrict like a snake around his throat. It cut off every scrap of air and he clawed desperately at his neck, trying to tear the collar away. He couldn’t even scream. He was suffocating!

“Stop it!” Maka screamed.

She still couldn’t fight her own mother, but she could—! Maka dove back to Soul’s side, grabbed at the collar with both hands, and yanked but it only seemed to tighten on his throat. He grasped desperately at her wrists, eyes wide with panic. She tried to soothe him, but she was close to panic herself. Finally, her fingers found a small flat piece of metal and the release. With a gasp, she pulled it away from his throat—hardly recognizing the damage to him that lurked beneath. Soul threw both arms around her, gasping for breath, and Maka held him tightly.

“Mom, why would you do that?” she whispered.

Kami grabbed her daughter by her shoulder and tried to tear her backwards from Soul, but they were hanging on to each other too tightly. “Let him go!” she shrieked wildly. “He’s just a slave! You can’t be with him, Maka! Let him go right now! I will kill him for you!”

Soul tightened his grip on his master. “Please, don’t let her…”

Maka clutched him tighter. “I won’t,” she whispered.

Kami screamed, “Maka!” Then, she lifted her remaining hand and struck her daughter down. 

Soul caught her in his arms, protecting Maka’s head and face with his folded arms and burying his face into the crook of her neck for a shred of shelter as well. Maka cried out in shock, clinging to Soul as tight as she could. Her own mother was attacking her?! She grabbed Soul’s hand and yanked him to his feet.

“We need to get out of here!” she shouted.

Soul nodded, one hand still pressed to the bared flesh of his damaged throat.

Together, hand in desperate hand, Soul and Maka charged out into the night of Death City and Kami Albarn just kept screaming behind them. She sounded like a wild animal, like a bird trapped in a closing cage. She sounded nothing like a mother, not anymore. Something was wrong. Something had changed. But what?

X X X

I’m watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s so cute and funny. I keep laughing and breaking my train of thought, but it’s too fun to stop.

So, what are we all thinking? What’s wrong with Kami?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	19. Escape into Darkness

Ah! I cannot spell today either! I had to write “checking” and I swear to god, I just couldn’t get it! I had a momentary lapse in spelling ability! I had “keck” and “kheck” and all kinds of weird combinations. I finally got it though, no worries! I can totally spell now!

X X X

Death City’s nights were deep and cool. Overhead, the yellow moon was maniacally grinning widely and laughing and its white teeth were dripping blood that never reached the ground. A huge white moth was battering itself against one of the streetlamps, muted but weirdly sad. Somewhere in the night, a dog was barking, a baby was crying, and someone was yelling. The smells of dinner and clean laundry filled the dark streets until it was almost like a home. Laughter, shouting, and speaking owned the waves of still air. Around the corner where they couldn’t see, there was the hollow smack-splat of someone bouncing a half-flat basketball.

Soul’s grip on Maka’s hand was hot and soothing and tight, but all she could hear was his ragged breathing—sharp and labored as he gasped for breath, keeping pace running beside her. God, was he okay? He had been electrocuted and strangled by that collar! What if he was badly hurt? Her own heartbeat felt like a drumbeat in her ears, so loud that she wondered if Soul could hear it as well. God, she had to check on him. She had to make sure he was okay!

“Hold on,” Maka finally said between breaths when she heard a small cry escape him. “Let’s stop for a minute.”

Together, they ducked beneath the striped red-and-white awning of a closed florist, hidden by the deep pool of shadows. Inside and safely behind glass, the flowers looked like the decorations of some dark necropolis. Soul crouched down immediately, hands at his throat, gasping for breath with a terrible wheezing undertone. Maka knelt beside him and put her hands on his warm trembling back. Please, don’t let him be terribly hurt! Actually, please, don’t let him be hurt at all!

“Soul, are you okay? Please, let me see,” she said desperately. “Is your throat hurt? Is it cut? Are you bleeding?”

“I’m alright,” he gasped out and tried to push her hands away.

“Please, Soul, just let me see!” Maka insisted and pried his hands down from his throat. 

There was a band of pure white circling his neck. For a moment, Maka was terrified that the electricity had burned him badly enough that his flesh was nothing but bone and sinew where the collar had been, but when she reached out a shaking hand to touch him, the flesh was smooth and cool beneath her fingers. It was then that she realized this was just his skin—unblemished by scars, filth, or damage and untouched by sunlight or anything else. That collar had been on him for years and this was just his soft undamaged natural flesh. 

“Oh wow,” she whispered and gingerly ran her fingers across his throat.

Soul pressed his hand over hers, stopping her movement effectively and crushing her fingers against the smooth flesh and his racing pulse. “Please, don’t put it back on,” he whispered and she felt the thrum of his vocal cords as he spoke. “Please, don’t, Maka.”

Maka cupped his handsome face in her free hand, still feeling that cool band of pure untouched flesh beneath her palm, and he nuzzled into her touch. Then, his crimson eyes fluttered closed and she realized just how much he had come to trust her. “Don’t worry, Soul,” she told him firmly. “I won’t! I can’t let anyone hurt you again!”

Soul covered her hand on his face with his own and nodded slightly, eyes still closed. “Thank you, Maka,” he murmured.

Maka stood up from her crouched position, gripped his scarred hands tightly in her own, and pulled him to his feet to stand beside her. Then, she looked out over Death City at night and realized she had no idea what to do now.

Where could she go? She couldn’t go to her papa and tell him that her mother had just freaked out and punished Soul with the remote because then she would have to explain what had made Kami go off the deep end—being in the same bed, sleeping in the arms of, her slave. Maka knew she would have no chance of rescuing Soul if her papa got his hands on him. So, Papa was out of the question. It was late and the thrift store where Miss Mari worked was closed. Even if she woke Miss Mari up, she would probably side with her mother. Maka couldn’t go to Ragnarok, either, what with their huge fist fight and falling out and all. He was her only friend from school so that was out, too. Wait, what about Death the Kid? He was a viable choice and he had offered to accept her but she had stormed out on him at the café. That led to another roadblock—even if she decided to go to Kid’s house, she had no clue where it was! What about Tsubaki, then? Urg, wait, same deal!

Beside her, Soul slid his warm hand into her own again. She glanced at him and he smiled softly, pointed white teeth flashing in the dark. Then, his smile abruptly fell and he hid his sharp teeth with his lips. Maka didn’t have time to correct him. 

“It’ll be okay,” she said half-to-him and half-to-reassure-herself. “I’ll think of something.” 

He nodded and gave her fingers a small squeeze. Again, together, they set out into Death City at night.

…

_“Nero.”_

_“Yesss?”_

_“She’s escaped the house.”_

_“Ssshall I fetttch herrr?”_

_“No.”_

_“Bbbut—”_

_“I want you to catch her and destroy her.”_

_“Righttt aaaway, Mistresss.”_

_…_

_“Kuro.”_

_“Yes?”_

_“You end him. I can’t risk her getting her hands on him.”_

_“That means he’s left the house?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“What about the other?”_

_“Bring him. I wish to bring him into my services.”_

_“I’ll do it right now.”_

…

Chrona had waited with is heart in his bruised throat (Ragnarok had choked him earlier) until his master finally fell asleep. Then, creeping through the giant beautiful house like a cat burglar, Chrona snuck out of the bedroom, down that hall, through the living room, past the shadowy kitchen, and finally reached the front door. He grasped the knob carefully, begging all the gods he knew of not to let the hinges creak and alert anyone to his escape-in-progress, but he didn’t get that far. The door was locked and the alarm was blinking green—system ready: ARMED.

He didn’t know how to deal with this! What now?!

Chrona sucked in a deep breath and eased his shaking hands off the knob. He had already decided he had to get out of here and he had to warn Miss Maka about Ragnarok’s conversation with the darkness outside the window. It was clear Miss Maka needed help and Chrona knew he wasn’t much good to anybody, but maybe he could at least warn her. If it came down to it, he would happily die for her, too. She was the only one to ever show him kindness and he would replay her anyway he could. Chrona took another deep breath and skulked through the living room, checking for an open window. More bad luck!

What should he do now?! How did he deal with this?!

Chrona took in another breath like breathing was going to go out of style or become illegal for slaves or something else ridiculous. (Well, maybe not so ridiculous for Chrona because Ragnarok had ordered him not to breathe once and he had held his breath desperately until he passed out!) Then, he crept back upstairs and searched for an open window. Finally, a double helping of luck. The bathroom window was open and there was a strong tree branch reaching just perfectly for his escape.

How should he deal with this much good luck?!

Chrona clambered into the window, hindered by his stupid dress but not feeling brave enough to steal proper escaping clothes on top of escaping. Then, he’d really be in for it! Wobbling on the sill, Chrona reached out for the strong branch, touched it gingerly, and then gripped it tightly in one hand. He flattened himself out on his stomach and wrapped both skinny arms around the tree limb. The bark bit into his bare flesh and bruises painfully.

Great, now what should he do? How did he deal with this?

Chrona shimmied out the window the rest of the way and hung from the branch like a moron. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and breathed heavily until he didn’t feel like he was going to scream anymore. Then, he opened his eyes and looked helplessly at the window. He was stuck now. Even if he wanted to go back, the window was just out of reach. Then, he did what you should never do in that kind of situation, he looked down. Immediately, panic welled up in Chrona and he bit his lip to keep form howling in terror.

He didn’t know how to deal with being up this high!

Whimpering, Chrona clutched the branch and scrabbled around with his feet until he found a branch beneath himself. In a weird crab-walk while he clutched the branch at neck level and scampered along on the lower branch with his feet, Chrona made it to the thick trunk of the tree. There, he shakily released the upper branch, grabbed a hold of the trunk desperately, and slid down so he could whimper into his knees. Look at that, the worst was over, he thought happily. Then, he looked down again and saw he still had a storey worth of climbing down to do!

Aaah! He didn’t know how to deal with this!

Chrona desperately hugged the tree and reminded himself of why he was doing this in the first place. Miss Maka needed his help! Steeled with that righteous knowledge, Chrona put his foot on the branch below, wrapped his arms around the trunk tighter, and stretched himself out freakishly to avoid letting go of anything. Yeah, this just wasn’t working, Chrona realized as he dangled there stupidly. So, slowly and bravely, he let go of the trunk and reached to grab another branch. Surprisingly, Chrona made it all the way to the bottom of the tree without dying. 

He had dealt with it!

Proudly, he looked up at the tree, saw how high he had really been, and about passed out. After spending a minute with his head between his knees, Chrona got to his feet again and scrambled off into the night. He had to find Miss Maka and warn her. He had to help her! 

As luck would have it, he was half-way to her house when he saw her standing on the corner like a moonlit goddess. Beside her stood Soul with his hair like liquid starlight and his hand clasped tightly in hers. He looked so unhurt and well-taken-care-of that it made Chrona burn with jealously for his undernourished and beaten body, but what he really wanted was to be the one holding Miss Maka’s hand. He bet her hand was so soft and warm! 

After looking both ways, Maka began to cross the street and Chrona called desperately out to her, “Miss Maka!”

…

Tsubaki sighed with exhaustion and finished wiping off the last table. Now, that the café was empty, she could have a cup of coffee and take a break. For once, BlackStar was sitting quietly at the low bar, stirring his water with his finger. 

“Hey Tsubaki?” he asked.

“Yeah?” She poured out a cup of old coffee proceeded to drown it in cream and sugar. She hated coffee so what was she honestly doing working in a café that specialized in—you guessed it—coffee and muffins. Right, she worked here because it was close to her house and allowed her to bring BlackStar with her without expecting that she would beat him senseless for breathing. The man who owned the café Cat’s Eye (1) was easy-going and amicable. 

“Would you ever take my collar off?”

She sighed and sipped her coffee. Truthfully, she wanted nothing more than to take his collar off, but he was so boisterous and out-of-control that she sometimes simply needed it to get his ass back in a seat and off the chandelier or out of the bathroom when she was bathing. 

“Tsubaki?” he repeated.

“I would, BlackStar, I really would, but… you’re just so… crazy that sometimes I need it to control you…”

“But if I was good, you’d take it off?”

She smiled at him. “In a heartbeat, BlackStar.”

“I’ll start right now!” he said happily. “I’ll prove it to you, Tsubaki!” 

“I’d like that,” she whispered and took a sip of her coffee.

“YAHOO!” And look at that, it had been two minutes and he was already on the chandelier again. 

“BlackStar, sit!” And the exhausted waitress pushed the button for the fifteenth time that night. She probably wouldn’t be finished pushing it until she reached at least thirty and that was if she decided to think positively. Tsubaki sighed, “Halfway there…”

…

“Miss Maka!” 

There was no way… Was that Chrona’s voice?

Maka whirled around sharply, dragging Soul around with her but he was a good sport about it. Maka feared another confrontation with Ragnarok, especially since Chrona had called out to her, but it looked like Chrona was running towards her alone. There could be no mistake. It was definitely Chrona! No one else in Death City had violet hair and that many bruises… or was a man and wore a dress…

“Chrona?!” Maka shouted. 

Soul tightened his grip on her fingers, but followed as she quickly made her way over to Chrona.

“Chrona! What are you doing out here? Where’s Ragnarok?”

Chrona paled, but smiled. “I ran away. I had to warn you.”

Soul tensed and Maka clutched his hand. 

“Warn me about what?”

“Master Ragnarok. He was talking to the darkness outside the window and he said…” Chrona cut his eyes to Soul and wrung his hands nervously. He hoped he was doing the right thing. He didn’t know how to deal with being bad and being hurt anymore. “He was going to kill Soul so he could have you, Miss Maka.”

Soul tried to pull away, but Maka only tightened her grip. “What do you mean, Chrona? How could he have me?”

“The darkness said it would give you to him if he killed Soul.”

“The darkness?”

Chrona nodded, his face and eyes hopelessly honest. “Yes, it was outside the window.”

“Jeez, everything’s going crazy around here!” Maka said hotly. Then, she ran her hand through her hair and said, “I guess there’s no helping it. Chrona, you’d better come with us.” She stretched out her free hand to the poor slave. 

“Where are we going?” Chrona asked and eagerly took her hand. He was right! Her skin was so warm and soft and smooth and gentle.

Maka stopped dead in the road and then pulled them both forward. “Honestly, I have no idea,” she said.

The darkness swallowed the trio greedily up. 

…

From one of those dark shadows of Death City’s deep roads, the parchment pale man slithered out of the gutter and watched them as they escaped together. His dark-skinned partner joined him silently from a nearby alleyway. They watched together for a moment. Shit! Those children were never supposed to make it this far, but they couldn’t let Yuca down. That would mean their heads on a silver platter trimmed neatly with greens and red apples in their mouths. “Let’sss gggo,” Nero hissed in the darkness and Kuro nodded in agreement. Together, they followed their respective children and prepared to perform their respective tasks.

X X X

(1) Another nerd moment! Who runs the café Cat’s Eye? Fai D. Fluorite from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle! Hehe!

I have to say, I really enjoyed writing Chrona’s section. It was so fun! But I got a little tired of writing “How do I deal with this?!” Jeez, Chrona, grow some backbone! Honestly, if you can deal with having no distinct gender, you can deal with a little plot trauma!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	20. First Convergence of the Children

Long chapter—4000 words. Woot!

Recap going on, but hey, it’s chapter twenty. We were due for a recap! (I was starting to forget what exactly was going on and what had happened so I figured everyone else needed reminding.) This also smoothes out the last of the plot rumples. So, smooth sailing from here on out… I hope…

X X X

Maka Albarn had Chrona’s hand in one of her own and Soul’s in the other. Even with her mother gone crazy and there being a possibility of dangerous men chasing them, Maka felt comforted just having them close on either side of her. Though, they were so different—Soul’s hand was rough and hard but his fingers were long and strong, Chrona’s hand was soft and tender with ragged chewed nails—yet they were both so close to being the same. They were both hurt, un-collared, blessedly warm, a great comfort, and in need of her protection. Maka vowed she wouldn’t let them down, but she needed help and she could admit that easily. 

The café appeared like a beacon of safety on the darkness of the street ahead. The windows were aglow with amber light, blossoming creeping vine in the window box framing the window beautifully, awning fluttering like pale wings in the night, and glossy tables all deserted inside. There was a lot of noise, but it suddenly cut off. 

Chrona’s grip on her hand tightened and he let out a small whimper of fear, but Maka shushed him by gently rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. Beside her, Soul was relaxed and loose, but she felt his body humming with readiness. He was prepared to fight, to run, to anything. 

“Soul, wait here with Chrona, please,” she said softly and pried her hands from each of them. 

Soul nodded, white hair catching moonlight like a fallen star.

“Chrona, stay here with Soul, okay?” she said softly again.

Chrona nodded, nervously clutching at the side of the building.

Maka crept ahead of them and peered into the café’s front window. The vines tickled her cheeks and she pushed a few leaves aside so she could look in easier. For a moment, she nervously scanned the interior of the café for anything frightening or suspicious. But there was only the tired waitress, Tsubaki, sitting at the low bar with a mug of coffee and her rambunctious slave, BlackStar, hooting obnoxiously somewhere inside. Other than them, the entire café was empty. 

Maka flapped her hand at Soul and Chrona and they both quickly returned to her side. Chrona slipped his hand back into hers, but Soul only pressed the flat of his palm against her lower back. His touch was comforting and warm and Maka almost took a step back just to feel his hand more. 

“Let’s go,” she whispered to them.

Chrona whimpered softly, but Soul nodded.

Then, Maka pulled open the door to the café and towed her two slaves into the warm amber glow behind her. Immediately, Tsubaki whipped her head in their direction at the sound of the little bell, laid her blue eyes on their faces, and smiled widely. 

“Maka! Soul! It’s wonderful to see you,” Tsubaki said quickly. “Who’s your friend?”

Chrona ducked behind Maka, clutching at her shirt.

“Tsubaki, this is Chrona,” Maka said with a small wave and glanced out the window at the darkness beyond. Then, she admitted, “We need some help.” 

With those words, the floodgates opened and Maka realized just how insane her life had become. Her mother, the woman she had dreamed about seeing again for years, had blown up when she found Maka snuggled up with Soul. She hadn’t waited for an explanation—and the nightmare was a good reason to be seeking comfort!—she had just freaked out. Her father was untrustworthy, a cheater and a liar, and she couldn’t depend on him. She had lost her only friend, Ragnarok, and now she had his poor beaten slave at her side warning her of something bad that was going to happen. The only person she could really depend on was Soul, the strange damaged slave she had bought on a whim of her mother’s mysterious postcard. He was so peculiar—able to play piano, with filed-sharp perfect teeth, a beautiful battered body and face, and a terrible brokenness inside him. And now, she was knocking on the door of a café late at night to ask for help from people she wasn’t sure she could trust, but had been reduced to. What had her life become in such a short time?

Maka put her face in her hands and started to sob.

Soul responded immediately and put his arms around her from behind, catching Chrona under one of his arms, and Tsubaki hugged her from the front. It was so awkward yet Maka had never felt so safe or loved. Soul’s rough fingers slipped down against her throat, stroking her pulse tenderly. Chrona finally put his arms around Maka as well, hugging her nervously. Tsubaki whispered something soothing, humming vaguely in the back of her throat. BlackStar charged out of the backroom, howling but then fell abruptly quiet, and even he had enough sense to tread with caution. He came up on Tsubaki’s left and put his arms around as many of them as he could.

“It’s going to be okay, Maka,” Tsubaki whispered. “We’ll do all we can. I promise.”

…

Maka wasn’t sure how it had all happened so fast. One minute, she was sitting in the Cat’s Eye café with a cup of coffee in her cold hands and Chrona and Soul on either side of her. Then, she was sitting on Kid’s white couch with a cup of tea and Liz and Tsubaki on either side of her. Chrona and Soul were seated across from her, holding tea as well and looking rather uncomfortable. Kid was sitting on the coffee table, patiently waiting. Patty was draped in an armchair, giggling despite the situation. BlackStar was hooting something obnoxious somewhere in the house. Tsubaki took out her remote, pointed it vaguely in the direction of all BlackStar’s noise, and pressed the button. Abruptly, there was a loud crash and BlackStar clammed up. After several minutes, Tsubaki insisted he would come slinking in and there was nothing to worry about.

“Maka,” Kid began. “Could you tell us… everything you know about what’s going on?”

Maka sniffled. 

Liz handed her a tissue from a half-emptied box. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “Take your time.”

“Thanks.” Maka mopped her face. “I don’t,” she sniffled, “know anything. I have no idea what’s going on anymore. My life has just fallen apart ever since I bought Soul!”

“Let’s run through this,” Kid said gingerly. “What happened first?”

“My mother sent me a cryptic postcard telling me to go to the slave warehouse and buy him because he was in danger and…” Maka hesitated, glancing at Soul, “…she said I was going to need him to die for me one day.”

Soul sucked in some breath and quickly took a sip of his tea to cover his shock.

“I never—”

“That doesn’t matter right now. What happened next?” 

Liz shot him a glare and passed Maka another tissue. “Take it easy, Kid.”

“No, it’s okay,” Maka said and blew her nose. “After that, I went to the warehouse and I bought Soul. He was about to be eaten alive.”

Soul winced, hands shaking around the cup of tea, and Chrona shied nervously aside, glancing at Soul from the corner of his eyes. Chrona had been through hell and back but he couldn’t imagine being eaten alive.

“We did some shopping and got used to each other. Then, Soul was hurt and we met you, Kid,” Maka told him.

Kid nodded. “I remember, Maka.”

That dark man had charged through the window of the warehouse, shattering it. He had gutted Soul like a fish and been about to finish the job when Kid and his sister-slaves happened to hear Maka screaming. Kid, armed because he often walked the streets for his father, immediately rushed to investigate and arrived just in time to save them both. Then, they had all trundled off to the hospital where Maka had been terrified by Stein following slave-protocol. She had thought Soul was really dead, but Kid didn’t know what had happened after she charged out into the rain but it wasn’t any of his business. He only knew that Stein had called her father, Spirit, to fetch her back to the hospital and explain the misunderstanding. All had worked out all right.

“And after that?”

“I went to spend the night at Ragnarok’s because Soul was in the hospital and my papa didn’t want me staying home alone after being attacked.”

Kid cut his eyes to Chrona’s cowering form. They had already explained to him that Chrona was Ragnarok’s slave, but he was still waiting on the reason for Chrona’s desperate escape. “Ragnarok’s house, what happened there?”

“I fell asleep and I left early to pick Soul up from the hospital. I couldn’t bear to watch him beating up Chrona when all I could think about was getting Soul back and taking care of him,” Maka confessed and twisted some ash-blonde hair around her finger.

Soul’s cheeks turned a little pink and he looked sharply away.

“And after you went home?” Kid prompted.

“I gave him some chap stick for his split lip.” Suddenly, Maka’s face darkened and she bit her lip.

“Maka?” Kid whispered. “What happened after that?”

“I… I made a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“I told Soul that if he didn’t make breakfast by eight o’clock each morning, I was going to send him back to the warehouse to be eaten alive. He was hurt so bad and when he did it, his chest tore open and he was bleeding everywhere. I felt so horrible,” Maka whispered. “But Soul is so forgiving. We had breakfast and we talked a little…”

“That’s nice,” Liz said sweetly and rubbed Maka’s back. “What did you talk about?”

Maka bit her lip, met Soul’s eyes, and whispered, “Just things…” They had talked about the best and worst things that had happened to them, about how Soul was proud that he had never been raped, and something that Soul wouldn’t finish.

“Then, I came to your school to ask you to come to the café,” Kid continued. “And you walked out on us.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Maka said.

“Don’t worry,” Liz murmured.

“Yes, all is forgiven,” Tsubaki said with a small smile. As she had predicted, BlackStar slunk into the room at that moment and slithered into the remaining armchair across from Patty. Tsubaki waved the remote at him and he remained quiet.

Maka recalled what she and Soul had talked about as they stormed home from the café. Why Soul had saved her, how he had never been cared for in his life, and a hint about his family and his hands being broken, and finally a small level of trust and compassion between them. 

“After that,” Maka began because she didn’t want to talk about that small argument and understanding she had reached with Soul. “There was the fight with Ragnarok. He asked me out on a date and I exploded in his face. We fought and we were suspended from school for two days.” She glanced at Chrona who nervously sipped his tea. “And then I tried to buy Chrona from Ragnarok, but he wouldn’t let me. My father had to drag me out of their house.”

“Then your mother returned?”

Maka nodded. “We were all at the hospital together.” Her mind flashed back to the moment she had had with Soul after finding out he had stayed to wait for her, slipping her finger into his mouth and talking about his dangerous filed-sharp teeth and his confession that he used to play piano. His tattoo… could he be a part of the Evans Family? But that was impossible, Maka had already decided. She shook herself roughly to chase those thoughts away. “Then, Mom came home and she was sleeping in my room so I had to sleep in the living room.”

“Is that what prompted Kami’s rage?” Tsubaki asked gently.

Maka shook her head. “I… I had a nightmare.”

Kid sat bolt upright on the coffee table, recalling what his father had said about Yuca’s nightmare-causing ability with her blood and that Kami had made Maka an insomniac in order to prevent the nightmares from reaching her. Was it fading or had it never worked? “A nightmare?” he repeated.

Maka nodded.

“About what?” Tsubaki asked gently. 

Maka lifted her emerald eyes to her slave. “Soul,” she whispered. “I had a nightmare that Soul was dead.”

“And that’s what freaked Kami out?” Liz asked.

Maka shook her head. “No. She woke up in the middle of the night and when she came out, she saw me sleeping with Soul. She screamed bloody-murder and she attacked him with the collar. I was so afraid she was going to kill him that I yanked it off,” she explained.

Everyone looked at Soul, at the ring of perfect white flesh on his neck.

“We left the house and ran into Chrona on the street. Then, we went to the café for help and wound up here… somehow…” Maka finished lamely and reclined back against the couch cushions. She was suddenly exhausted and all she wanted to do was sleep, even being an insomniac.

“What about you, Chrona?” Kid asked gently and turned to face Ragnarok’s beaten slave.

Chrona shivered and whispered, “Um, Master was talking to the darkness outside the window and it said if he killed Soul, it would give him Maka.”

“I suppose we can’t trust Ragnarok, then,” Kid said. He turned back to Maka and asked, “Is it safe to trust Chrona?”

Chrona yelped and pressed back deeply into the couch cushions.

Maka smiled gingerly. “Yes, we can trust Chrona.”

Chrona grinned at her and whispered, “Thank you, Miss Maka.”

For a long moment, everyone was quiet, even Patty though it looked as if she had simply fallen asleep. Kid rose from the table, gathered a few blankets, and took the empty tea set into the kitchen. When he returned, he covered Patty gently, wrapped a large blanket around Chrona and Soul both, and then a third around Maka’s shoulders. Then, he met Liz and Tsubaki’s eyes and they gave him a small nod to say that they agreed. Maka needed to know what she was dealing with, what they were all dealing with.

Yuca Kishin.

“Maka,” Kid began. “Do you know anything about your mother’s twin sister?”

“My mother’s sister?” Maka whispered and leaned hard into Tsubaki. She had the sudden feeling that she wasn’t going to like what came next in this little meeting and she wasn’t disappointed. The older girl put her arms around Maka comfortingly and cast a warning look at BlackStar as he was beginning to fidget. Immediately, he settled down—trying to get the collar off, remember?

Kid nodded sadly and told her everything his father had told them.

Yuca had wanted a child of her own, but she was infertile. When her twin sister had Maka and married Spirit, Yuca decided she wanted to replace Kami in their family. Kami, being a twin, knew what her sister was planning and told Lord Death who arranged Mari Mjolnir to bodyguard the family. It was unsuccessful though because Yuca stole ten-year-old Maka anyway and inflicted her nightmare-blood on the child. To protect Maka from the nightmares, Dr Stein and Kami hypnotized Maka to be an insomniac and blocked off her memories of the entire event. Lord Death, Kami and Spirit, Mari, and Stein had gone after Maka. They had fought Yuca and apparently the battle had been wild enough that they weren’t certain whether Yuca was alive or dead afterwards, but decided to play it safe. That was when Kami and Spirit devised the ruse of their divorce under the guise of Spirit cheating and Kami left Death City for five years. 

“W-why did Lord Death tell you all that?” Maka whispered. “I mean, I didn’t even know and it concerns me!”

Liz rubbed her arm soothingly. “Yuca is dangerous and he wanted us to make an informed decision about whether we wanted to help you or not.”

“Father is that kind of man. He doesn’t protect us just because we’re children and he knows me. He knows I’d never abandon someone in need,” Kid explained.

“So…?” Maka ventured nervously.

Tsubaki nodded. “We’ve decided to help you, Maka.”

“Yup, come Hell or high water, we’ve got your back!” Liz said cheerfully. 

Maka smiled. “You guys are the best.”

Kid clapped his hands and stood from the coffee table. “Alright then, we have plenty of guestrooms all ready to go and it’s probably too dark and dangerous to head home now. What do you say we have a giant sleepover-type-thingy?”

Tsubaki smiled. “That sounds good. Batten down the hatches, so to speak?”

Kid smiled, nodded, and clapped his hands again.

“Stop clapping,” Liz said to him. “You’re acting like a clown.”

“Clown, clown!” Patty shrieked, having just woken up. “Kid is a clown!”

And of course, BlackStar just had to join in. Once again, Tsubaki was forced to use her remote and she checked off number twenty-two mentally. Only about eight more times to go and she was done for the night. She sighed heavily and helped Kid herd everyone into rooms and beds.

…

Again, Maka wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. One minute, she was sitting on the couch between Liz and Tsubaki. Then, she was standing in a bedroom alone with Soul looking awkwardly down at the single bed. Since they had escaped her house in the middle of the night, frightened out of bed, they were still in their pajamas which was convenient now but would be a small problem tomorrow morning. Soul peeled back the covers and started to sort about to make himself a pallet on the floor. 

“Wait,” Maka said softly.

Soul looked up at her, crimson eyes glowing in the dark. “Is something wrong?”

“Sleep with me,” she whispered.

“W-what?” His hands turned white in the blankets. 

Maka toed off her shoes and shrugged out of her jacket half-heartedly, dropping it on the floor. She wasn’t even sure when she had grabbed the thing amid her panic back at her house. Then, she slid into the bed and patted the space beside her, sitting up with her arms around her bent knees. “There’s no need for you to sleep on the floor tonight. Everyone here understands and they don’t care,” she explained. “We won’t be woken up by anyone screaming.”

“But—”

“Please, Soul, I want you to be comfortable,” she murmured. “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

He shook his head and bent down to untie his shoes. Then, hesitantly, he slipped into bed beside her and the mattress dipped under his light weight. Unlike Maka, he stretched out beneath the covers with his head resting on the pillow and his arms crossed tightly over his narrow chest. His breathing was deep and exaggerated and she could tell he was nervous to be laying her with her like this. It was different before when she had fallen into his arms crying and distressed. This had a chance to be awkward.

Maka rolled over to face him in the semi-darkness and sighed heavily. She was so tired, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep and she knew that. “What am I going to do, Soul?” she whispered and covered her face with her hands.

Soul shifted and touched her shoulder beneath the covers. “I think… it’ll be okay,” he whispered.

“Why do you think that?”

“You have friends,” he whispered and smiled in the darkness, sharp teeth flashing. “That’s always good. I wish I could have friends…”

“They’re your friends too, Soul,” Maka murmured and put her hand on his chest. She felt the ridge of his healing wound beneath the thin shirt. 

“You really think so?”

She nodded, smiling softly at the joy that showed on his face. Then, she lowered her eyes and whispered, “What should I do though? I mean, I’ve hated my father for five years because I thought he had cheated on my mother and now I found out he never had and this was all an elaborate ploy to protect me from Yuca. How do I make up for that?”

“I’m sure he understands,” he said softly. Soul’s mind wandered back to the confrontation he had had with Spirit, how the man had begged Soul to protect his daughter with his life and even sank to threatening him, even offering him something he had lost but Spirit couldn’t possibly grant that… Soul shook himself, chasing away the skeletons in his closet and the ghosts in his head. “Your father loves you,” he whispered to Maka in the darkness. 

Maka sniffled. “I know, but this is all so horrible,” she sobbed. “My entire family has been torn apart at the seams. Everything I thought I knew turned out to be a lie.” She caught Soul’s hand in the dark and clung to it desperately, trying not to break down and cry.

“Maka,” Soul whispered and brought her hand to his pale throat where the collar had once been. “You have me. I haven’t lied to you, not once…”

She laughed softly. “I know, Soul, I know,” she said and boldly snuggled against his chest. She wanted to feel the heat of him around her, his strong arms around her body, his breath on her skin. She wanted the moment that had been stolen by her mother’s screaming panic that had chased them from the house.

For a moment, Soul was tense and stony against her, shocked, but he finally relaxed and wrapped his arms around her. His body was blessedly warm against Maka’s exhausted frame and his hands absently stroked her back for a long moment. He was such a comfort to her, even if he was only a slave. Then, he dipped his face into the side of her neck and his breathing became deep and moist as he slept—lucky dog always fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. 

But Maka was still awake when there was a faint knock on the door. 

“Come in,” she whispered.

Chrona poked his violet head around the door, nervous and fidgeting, like a flower unsure of when exactly to bloom—at night or during the day? Liz had given him some of Kid’s cotton skull-esque pajamas and he looked strange without his dark dress. “M-Miss Maka?” he ventured and clutched the door with thin fingers.

“Is something wrong, Chrona?” Maka whispered. Her fingers were against the ridged wound on his chest, tenderly feeling his pain. He was so hurt and she didn’t want to wake Soul.

“I-I’m afraid. What if the darkness comes outside my window?”

Maka smiled softly. Chrona was like a small child, in his pajamas, begging for some safety and comfort. Who was Maka to deny him? She carefully untangled herself from Soul’s arms, rolled over, and nestled her back against his chest comfortably. “Here, Chrona, sleep with us,” Maka offered and pulled back the covers slightly. 

Chrona crossed the room and nervously slid into the bed as well. Now, Maka felt like a sardine sandwich but she was content between her two slave-boys like this. Chrona found her hand in the darkness and held it tightly. 

“Miss Maka,” he whispered. “Is this okay?”

“Of course, Chrona, just try to get some sleep. I’ll be awake.”

“I’m sorry you can’t sleep, Miss Maka.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Okay,” Chrona whispered and snuggled down beneath the covers. 

Silently, Maka stroked his tangled violet tresses and caressed a narrow ridge of scarring she found on Soul’s forearm with the other hand. She was safe and warm, and even though there was plenty to worry about, Maka was content to be here with all these precious people like this. At least, like Soul, Chrona didn’t snore. Even if she still couldn’t sleep, she was happy to be here to comfort her friends, holding them and cuddling them all night. You see, there was always a bright side to everything.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	21. Attack on the Children!

Those of you that have read me before, there’s *whisper whisper secret whisper* coming up and you know how that works—mad character skipping! Those of you new to the scene, if you’re wearing a hat, hang on to it!

Another long chapter—phew!

X X X

Soul woke to a lot of movement and a little bit of quiet grumbling. Maka was carefully easing her body from his arms and he immediately tightened his grip on her frail body. Honestly, he didn’t want her to go but he denied himself that thought by saying he didn’t want to go back to the warehouse if anything happened to her. Over her narrow shoulder, he could see Chrona’s head of pale violet hair and the curve of the boy’s jaw—when did he come in? Chrona was still asleep and there was darkness outside the window, pale fingers of moonlight still reaching across the floor, and everything was still and quiet. So, why was Maka getting up?

Maka froze when he held her tighter and whispered, “Oh, I’m sorry, Soul. Did I wake you?”

He shook his head, lips just touching the back of her neck and making the fine hairs there rise to attention. “Is something wrong, Maka?” he whispered.

“No,” she told him. “It’s starting to get light. I was just going to get up and shower. I’m getting tired of being in bed and I can’t sleep.”

Soul hugged her in his arms and she was just about to ask him what he was doing when he rolled smoothly over, dragging her body over his. A small squeak of surprise escaped Maka and then the floor was beneath her bare feet and Soul was tenderly letting her go. She must have a question in her eyes because he smiled faintly.

“I didn’t want you to wake Chrona,” he explained. “Or have to climb over me.”

Maka blushed and wrung her fingers. “You should stay in bed. Rest a little more, you know. There’s no reason for you to get up.”

His lips curved and his eyes slipped closed. Within minutes, Soul was asleep again and Maka had to resist the urge to swat him with a pillow. On those nights she was tired but couldn’t sleep, she always wanted to beat the people who slept so easily and Soul’s ability was really pressing on her exhausted nerves. But, because he deserved to sleep and didn’t snore, she shuffled off to the bathroom and left him and Chrona to sleep some more.

Death the Kid had an awesome guest bathroom. It was spotless, just like the rest of his house, with a giant stall shower of frosted glass, a single sink of black granite, and a porcelain throne.

Maka stripped out of her pajamas, draped her pajamas over the rim of the sink, and scrutinized her naked body in the mirror. She found a little scar on her collarbone and traced it with her finger, wondering what that had been from. Maybe her childhood kitten, Blair, had scratched her. Then, her mind turned unwillingly to Soul’s body and she wondered what kinds of scars decorated his flesh. Shaking herself, she cranked on the hot water, slipped beneath the spray, and began to scrub the stress from her skin.

Maybe things wouldn’t have worked out the way they had if Maka hadn’t gotten in the shower just then, but there was no going back now and they would never really know for certain how things would have changed.

…

Kid was puttering about in his spotless kitchen of black granite and stainless steel appliances, busily making pancakes into perfect circles to relax his obsessive-compulsive side. Liz and Tsubaki were sitting at the nook table, talking over early morning tea. BlackStar was still sacked out somewhere, maybe the living room floor. (He had gotten up with Tsubaki, deliriously walked downstairs, made Kid’s life miserable in the kitchen for about ten minutes, and then slunk off to sleep some more because there was no food to be devoured yet.) Patty was sitting at the island with her crayons, also making Kid’s life miserable by constantly erasing and getting shavings everywhere, drawing a giant giraffe. Maka must be in the shower because water was running and Chrona and Soul must still be asleep or else waiting for Maka. Kid finished his first pancake with a smile, slid it onto the spatula, and whirled it onto a plate.

“Okay,” Kid began cheerfully. “Who wants this one? It’s not perfect but—”

CRASH!

And then all hell broke loose.

…

Since BlackStar was asleep on the mat by the front door like a dog begging to be walked, they got to him first. And since they got to him first, he never even stood a snowball’s chance in hell. The front door imploded inward with the horrifying sound of cannon fire and flattened BlackStar like a pancake. Something or someone then hit him in the back of the head and neck in rapid succession. He was out cold before they even landed inside Kid’s house.

Luckily, the noise gave the girls and Kid plenty of time to prepare and they were in the kitchen, the perfect place to be facing a crisis. Kid grabbed the hot frying pan off the stove and held it baseball-bat-style. Liz grabbed a knife from the block and passed a second one to Tsubaki. Patty, being Patty, grabbed the fork she had been planning to eat pancakes with and brandished it with the fearlessness of a child. Then, they turned to face whatever had blown into the house.

The first man to step into the doorway, Kid recognized as the dark man that had been attacking Maka and Soul that day in the rain. The second was as thin and brittle as parchment and unfamiliar to all of them. Only one thing was clear, they were Yuca’s henchmen and they had to be stopped.

“Who are you?” Liz demanded.

“Kuro,” said the first man carelessly. 

“Nerooo,” the second hissed out and licked his dry lips. 

“But you don’t have to remember that, sweetheart, you’ll be dead soon anyway,” Kuro said and pulled a revolver from his coat pocket. Languidly, he waved it at them. “Where is Maka Albarn?”

Kid tightened his grip on his frying pan, wishing he had his own twin guns at his sides right now, but they were in the living room in their holsters hanging neatly on the coat rack. Fantastic place for them stupid, he thought bitterly to himself, but there was no time to dwell on his imperfections right now. “What do you want?” he demanded of them. “This is a private residence and you are breaking and entering. If you leave now, I won’t press charges.”

Nero waggled his finger. “Stuuupid boooy, yooou knooow thattt’s not whyyy we’reee heeere.”

“Where is Maka Albarn?” Kuro repeated. 

Liz was the first to move, bravely and boldly, with that horrible expression of I-have-nothing-to-lose-and-everything-to-protect on her face. Shrieking like a mad creature, she lunged over the island at Kuro and nearly sank her knife into his face. 

Grinning, he shoved his revolver into her stomach and said flatly, “Should I pull the trigger, bitch?”

Liz exploded backwards from him with the dexterity of someone who had been through hell and back, but Kuro had a gun and that was faster than anyone. The bullet tore through her shoulder and she let out a howl of agony, clutching at the new wound. Her blood sprayed in a beautiful fan, spreading across Patty’s face and coating her lips like perfect lipstick. Kuro trained his gun on Liz again and pulled the hammer back. Something in Patty’s childish damaged face changed and a sort of light came on in her eyes.

Screaming like an animal and armed with nothing more than a fork, she lunged at Kuro and tore into him with nails, teeth, and eating utensils. “Don’t! Touch! My! Sister!” she screamed, voice rising louder and louder with each word. She stabbed her fork into Kuro’s eye and he finally threw her off. Her body cracked into the island, flipped over it, and crashed down beside Liz’s fallen form. As if she hadn’t felt any pain, Patty got up again.

“Patty! Patty, stop!” Liz shouted and reached out to her sister desperately, but she felt weak. Had she lost that much blood already? It was only a little wound, right? “Patty, stop it!”

But Patty didn’t stop. She lunged at Kuro again, blind to everything else around her, and tore his face apart with her nails and teeth. The fork was still sticking out of his eye socket like an accusing finger pointed in her face.

“Nero! Get her off me!” Kuro shouted.

The pale man grabbed Patty by her hair and tried to tear her off, but she clung on dangerously, screaming still. Kid cast aside his frying pan. If he could get to his guns, he could save them all, he was certain. He was a spectacular marksman and Patty had them distracted. Then, suddenly, the pale man’s eyes were on him like a physical touch and Kid knew he had made a mistake.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Nero hissed. 

Then, he pulled the fork from his comrade’s face and plunged it down into Kid’s. The metal tore through Kid’s cheek and he felt the tines on his tongue inside his mouth. God, it had torn right through him. Reeling, Kid dropped to his knees and clutched at his face. His fingers slid in through the wound and he felt his own teeth and tongue lashing at all the blood flooding into his mouth. A scream wouldn’t come, but Kid was frozen in horror and pain.

Tsubaki and Patty were the only ones left now.

Patty was thrown off again, back crashing over the island with a horrible sound as she slammed down on top of a mess of dishes. The broken porcelain and glass spread out around her and she cut herself countless times, but still didn’t notice. Again, she threw herself at the two men. 

Sans one eye, Kuro trained his gun on Patty, prepared to blow this bitch’s face apart.

Then, Tsubaki slammed into Nero from the side and they crashed down in a heap. The bullet tore into the ceiling in a cloud of white plaster and some glass from the light fixtures. She stabbed into their toppled bodies hopelessly with her knife, not even sure of what she was hitting. Blood splattered on her face and chest and she hoped that terrible animal noise was coming from Patty and not from her as she rejoined the fray. 

Suddenly, there was another heartbreaking gunshot and Tsubaki spit blood. 

What?!

…

Soul was woken abruptly from a sound sleep. What was that noise? It was so loud and it had seeped into his nightmares… or maybe seeped out of his nightmares and into his waking world. Beside him, Chrona was still sleeping and he could hear Maka singing softly in the shower. She must not have heard anything. But Soul still felt uneasy and then the sound came again. It was loud. Too loud, terribly loud. What was it? He knew he had heard it before. It came a third time and Soul knew then what it was.

Gunfire!

Soul threw off the blankets, scrambled over Chrona without a care that he woke the boy, and ran to the door. He wrenched it open and dashed down the hallway, bare feet slap-slapping on the hardwood floor. At the top of the staircase, he stopped and peered cautiously down. Fingers of blood were seeping out of the kitchen threshold and he saw a jumble of bodies inside. In the threshold, Maka’s mother was standing with a smoking gun and Soul’s heart dropped into his feet with a crash.

…

What was that?!

Patty was still tearing at the two men, screaming wildly, as if she hadn’t heard or felt anything and maybe she hadn’t. Liz was lying on the floor, bleeding heavily from her shoulder. Her face was pale, but her eyes were focused on something behind Tsubaki, something in the threshold. Kid was behind her, clutching his face and gushing sticky blood behind her bare feet. The knife was embedded in someone’s body. Trembling, Tsubaki sat back on her legs and pressed both hands to the red flower blooming in her side. Slowly, she tilted her head back and looked at whatever Liz was looking at. 

There was a beautiful woman standing there in a silk Chinese dress of fine red silk with leaves embroidered into it in gold. She had a lot of thick honey-blond hair, curled and waved beautifully, and deep emerald green eyes with thick spidery lashes long enough to shadow her pale face. She had plump pink lips, high cheekbones, and a lovely porcelain doll face. She looked like Maka—could this be Kami Albarn or was it Yuca Kishin? 

Tsubaki stared helplessly up at her and then slumped over sideways, hugging her side in pain. The woman stepped into the kitchen, put her foot into Patty’s flailing body, and slammed her down on the hardwood. For the first time, Patty cried out in pain, but it didn’t last long. She soon began to tear at the woman’s leg.

“Now, now,” the woman said. “Either stop or I will shoot your sister.”

As if the life had been sucked out of her, Patty fell still. She stared up at the woman with desperate tragic eyes. “Please, don’t… I love my sister…”

“That’s a good girl.”

Kuro lurched to his feet, one hand pressed to his empty eye socket. “I’ll kill that little bitch—!”

“Kuro,” the woman said firmly. “Stop.”

And he did. He had no choice. 

“We are not here for these children. Go upstairs and fetch the two we want.”

Yuca, Tsubaki realized. This had to be Yuca… She couldn’t let this woman get to Maka or Soul. There was a knife inches from her face and she slowly wrapped her finger around it and held it tightly while the two men filed from the room. The woman remained, looking down over the carnage in the kitchen, and Tsubaki waited even longer. When Yuca finally turned to leave, Tsubaki plunged the knife into the woman’s calf from her fallen position.

Coldly, Yuca turned back and stared down at Tsubaki’s trembling hand where it was still clutching at the hilt. 

“I can’t… let you hurt… my friends…” Tsubaki whispered.

Yuca knelt, pulled the knife from her leg, and fingered it. “What a stupid noble child you are,” she said and ran her thumb over the blade. Then, she slammed the blade through Tsubaki’s outstretched hand and pinned it effectively to the floor. 

Tsubaki couldn’t scream. She was already too far gone for any more pain, but she was horrified by the sight of the knife jutting out of her hand. 

“Be a good girl now and stay here quietly,” Yuca said. Then, as if she wasn’t hurt at all, she rose from her crouched position and left the kitchen. The sound of her sharp heels tap-tapping echoed as she walked up the stairs to Maka and Soul’s bedroom.

…

With Chrona’s help, Soul had muscled the dresser in front of the bedroom door, but it wasn’t enough. He put his back against it as the first blow crashed into the door and his small barricade moved a full inch and he struggled to shove it back. Whoever they were, these people were strong—much stronger than him.

“Go!” he shouted to Chrona. “Get Maka and get out of here!”

“But how?!” Chrona asked desperately and glanced around. 

“I don’t care! Go out the window!”

There was a crash against the door and the barricade moved two inched and something was shoved in through the space. A bullet whizzed past Chrona’s head and the boy looked about to burst into tears of panic. In the bathroom, the water abruptly shut off and Maka shouted their names.

“Damn it! Get out of here!” Soul shouted.

Chrona scrambled to his feet and darted towards the bathroom, sobbing, just as Maka shoved open the door. She was wrapped in only a towel and Chrona almost bowled her over. Her wide eyes met Soul’s and he tried to tell her to get out of here, but there was another blow to the door and everything around him just broke apart. The dresser flipped over, crushing his body beneath it, and the door crashed open loudly. Chrona let out a scream and clung to Maka and Soul tried desperately to get out from beneath the dresser, but more weight was suddenly added. Was someone standing on it? He couldn’t see with is face mashed into the floor.

“Get off of him!” Maka shouted and shoved Chrona away. “Mom, what are you doing?! What’s going on?!”

A woman’s laugh, cold and cruel, slithered through the room. “I suppose you would think I’m your mother, child,” Yuca said icily, “and you will be soon enough. Kuro, come stand here. Make certain this boy does not escape.” 

More weight crushed down on top of Soul, adding to the dresser and the unforgiving floor, and he let out a small cry of pain. The bones in his body were grinding together from the pressure and he felt old breaks beginning to ache badly beneath his tormented flesh. “Don’t!” he gasped out as a woman’s spiked heels came into his vision. If anything happened to Maka, he was going to be sent back to the warehouse to be eaten alive. “Don’t hurt her!”

Chrona let out a sob. “That’s the darkness,” he whimpered. 

“What?” Maka snapped at Chrona so that the boy shrank and whimpered despite himself. Then, she turned her attention back to the woman who looked like her mother, two men, and half-crushed Soul. “Get off of him!” she shouted. She put her arm around Chrona and took a step back, clutching her towel up over her breasts with her free hand. “You’re Yuca, aren’t you?!”

The woman in the Chinese dress sighed and lifted her left hand, revealing it was missing—severed at the wrist, just like Kami’s had been. “I supposed there’s no way of knowing for certain,” she said with a languid wave of her damaged limb. 

Maka bit her lip. “I do know! My mother would never hurt me!”

“I’ve been watching your house,” Yuca said. “I saw your mother attack you last night and drive you out.” Then, flippantly, she added, “Or that could have been me, you just never know. My sister and I are twins after all.”

“Stop it!” she shouted.

Chrona dug his fingers into her back.

“Nero,” Yuca said with a wave of her good hand. “Get her. It’s time we go.”

“Yesss.”

Desperately, Maka glanced at Soul, but he was still crushed beneath the dresser. His nails had raked paths in the hardwood, but he still couldn’t get out from beneath the weight in the awkward position he was trapped in. All she had on her side was Chrona, how was blatantly useless, and she was naked beneath her towel. What could she do?! A lump welled up in her throat but she choked it back. There was nothing she could do, she admitted, but she wasn’t going to just let them take her.

When Nero grabbed her wrist, she prayed her towel would stay. Maka grabbed his forearm with both hands and bit him wildly, tearing out a chunk of flesh with that horrible sound that reminded her of the slave warehouse. She spit, though, she wouldn’t eat him even if she was starving to death. Then, with a wet splat the towel dropped around her feet.   
Chrona yelped and jerked his face away, covering his eyes.

Maka ignored her own nudity and ignored the eyes on her. She clawed at Nero’s face desperately, not sure exactly what she was hoping would happen. Maybe she was hoping Kid would come upstairs with his guns and save her as he had before. Either way, no one and nothing came to save her. 

Nero punched her in the face, brutally and harder than needed, and she tasted blood. Had she bitten her tongue or was something in her mouth broken? A second blow and darkness came creeping in at the edges of her vision. Blackness took her greedily, sucking at her mind, but the last thing she remembered hearing was someone say, “Should we take the boy?”

“N-no,” she whispered. A third blow and she didn’t remember anything else after that.

…

Soul watched helplessly as Nero took Maka’s naked body in his arms. She was unconscious from those blows to her face and there was blood running from the corner of her lips. Chrona was cowering on his knees, arms around himself uselessly. Soul clawed that the floor, trying once again to get out from underneath the dresser, but his entire lower body was crushed beneath it and he just couldn’t get out without a miracle or some help.

“Should we take the boy?” Kuro asked.

“Of course. We need him,” Yuca said.

Soul’s heart lurched into his throat and there was a shuffling behind him as Yuca stood on the dresser in Kuro’s place. Kuro walked over to Chrona, grabbed him by his forearm, and hauled him to his feet. Nero jostled Maka, leering down at her naked breasts.

“S-stop it,” Soul gasped out. He couldn’t get in a deep enough breath.

Yuca spoke, her voice teasing. “Silly boy,” she said. “You didn’t really think we wanted you, did you? You haven’t been anything to anyone for a long time.”

Soul flinched.

“Let’s go,” Yuca said. 

Then, there was the sound of her high heels tapping away on the floor. The weight lifted from the dresser, but Soul still couldn’t struggle his way out from beneath it. Somewhere in the house, there was the sound of a door slamming shut. 

…

When the paramedics arrived on the desperate call from Lord Death’s son’s house, they found only one person conscious and a lot of blood. There was a young girl with short blond tresses holding the head of another girl in her lap, rocking and whispering something about her sister. A young man was crushed under the demolished front door, still breathing but knocked out cold. A dark haired girl was lying on her side with one hand stabbed through with a steak knife, pinned to the floor, and a red flower blooming in her side. Death the Kid’s face was split open by a fork and the utensil went in through his cheek. There were signs of a struggle everywhere. Upstairs, the bedroom was empty, but the dresser had been overturned and there were claw marks on the floor, but whoever had been trapped under that was long gone now.

“Shit!” Spirit swore.

“We were too late,” Mari whispered.

“Maka, Chrona, and Soul are all gone,” Lord Death said.

Stein was busily working on saving the children’s lives and didn’t say anything.

…

Soul ran through the streets of Death City, gasping for breath desperately. His body throbbed from being crushed beneath the dresser and his hands ached from clawing at the hardwood floor. Even so, he had to find Maka and bring her home or else he would be going back to the slave warehouse, back to being Eater and the all-you-could-eat buffet. Her father had told him so, flatly and meanly, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. He didn’t want to be eaten alive. So, he followed Yuca’s night-black car to who knows where, but he lost it after only a block and followed blindly into the heart of darkness. He could only pray that his feet would get him to where he needed to be. His very life depended on it!

X X X

Phew, did everyone keep up? That was such a fun chapter to write! I love action!

I might not be able to update tomorrow. I’m really sick, but I had this chapter in hock so… Yeah, I might not post tomorrow. Depends on if I can shake this cold by this afternoon. Urg, I hate being sick. My stupid snuffly nose…

Questions, comments, concerns?


	22. Aftershock at Death Hospital: Pt II

Grahahaha! Yeah, I don’t know… I’m still so sick. I’m not a happy camper.

Kind of a filler as I work out the setup for the next chapter. It still came out pretty long though!

And since I did post today, no matter how late, that counts! I STILL UPDATE EVERYDAY! So I win! Haha!

X X X

Maka Albarn woke up dumped unceremoniously in the bottom of a stall shower. For a moment, she hoped that her memory of Yuca and the men in Kid’s house had been only a nightmare, but then she felt the tenderness in her face and realized it had all been real. Horrified, she jumped to her feet and immediately sagged against the cold side, dizzy. She fingered her face—nothing felt misshapen or broken or hurt especially bad, but there was a lot of clumped blood on her skin. 

Maka sucked in a deep breath to calm herself and investigated her surroundings. She was still naked, but she didn’t look or feel violated and she was in a shower. The bottom of the stall shower was streaked with rust like blood with a rusty little circular drain. The walls were thick walls of beveled glass tiles about two inches thick. The shower was a veritable cell! Maka tried the door, found it locked, and slammed her shoulder into it. It still didn’t budge so she scrutinized through the fogged and beveled glass squares. Was that a chair or a dresser barring the door from the outside? She couldn’t tell. 

The only thing she could make out for certain was that she was damn-well trapped in the shower stall!

Resigned to her prison, she adjusted the water temperature a little warmer and stood beneath the spray, chasing the chill that had seeped into her body from the cold tiles. Carefully, she cleaned her brutalized face, scraped dried blood from between her teeth, and scrubbed it out of her pale hair. Then, she thought of the others, of her friends, and stopped even worrying that she was trapped naked in a strange decrepit shower. The others… 

Liz and Patty and Death the Kid. 

Tsubaki and BlackStar.

Poor Chrona.

Soul.

Oh god, Soul! What would they do with him now that she was gone? Send him back to the warehouse to be eaten alive? Sell him again? Just forget about him and leave him to starve because she didn’t think he’d feed himself if he was alone in her house? Then, Maka shook herself harshly. Even if her father and mother were too involved with searching for her, Kid would take Soul in… unless something had happened to Kid… 

Whimpering, Maka hugged herself and forced those dark thoughts away. She had to believe that the others would be okay. She had to! Silently, she stood beneath the spray of the warm water and waited to see what would happen to her now.

…

In the early dawn, Ragnarok was out trolling the streets for stupid escaped Chrona. Vaguely, he was also searching for Maka and her slave, Soul. If he killed Soul, Yuca would give him Maka and there was nothing he wanted more than Maka. He wanted to show her what she was missing when she turned him down! Growling, he peered into windows of darkened shops and stalked past the hospital and the academy. Then, a sleek black car pulled up beside him on the deserted street. 

“Hello Ragnarok,” the beautiful woman said when the window slid down. She looked a lot like Maka with the same honeyed tresses and emerald green eyes, but she wasn’t Maka. Her body was nicer and she didn’t have Maka’s selfless sweetness. 

“Miss Yuca,” Ragnarok said with a small nod. Yes, she was beautiful, but she wasn’t Maka and Ragnarok wanted Maka. He wanted to make Maka suffer for turning him down and then he wanted to take everything away from her. He was going to turn her into nothing and then make her his!

“Get in,” Yuca said with a wave of her good hand. 

And so he did. The interior of the night-black car smelled of plush leather and blood, alcohol and women’s perfume. Somehow, it smelled stale and ancient as well as if it had been rotting somewhere for a long time. The leather seats sucked Ragnarok in, holding every inch of his body like the greedy hands of a lover, and he sighed in delight. 

Beautiful Yuca was wearing a Chinese dress of red silk with a slit up one side to the hip and a low neck that showed the creamy swell of her breasts as she breathed. Her long sleek legs were crossed, revealing a lot of lovely thigh and silky white bare flesh, and her calves strained in black stiletto heels. Oh yes, she was beautiful, but she wasn’t Maka. And he wanted Maka! He would do anything and stop at nothing to get his hands on her.

“It’s your lucky day, dear boy,” Yuca purred to Ragnarok and then snapped at her driver, “Nero, back to the mansion.”

“Yesss,” Nero hissed and the car began to roll down the street, leaving Death City to diminish in the rearview mirror like a dream.

“What’s happened?” Ragnarok asked Yuca. He eyed her body, her breasts and her face and her legs, but he didn’t want her even a little bit.

She smiled, plush lips painted glossy and blood-red, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Oh, child, I'm going to make your every dream come true,” she whispered.

“How?” he asked sharply.

Yuca grinned and this time it reached her gleaming green eyes. Strangely, she looked like a carved jack-o-lantern with a sinister grimace on her beautiful face, teeth sharp and pearl white. Then, she reached across the seat and slid her remaining hand across his thigh. Ragnarok met her eyes and she licked her lips.

…

When Kid woke in the afternoon, his father was sitting at his bedside. Lord Death was slumped in the uncomfortable chair, face in his hands with his dark hair curtaining his handsome face. Kid glanced round the hospital room and remembered the bite of the fork as if went in through his face, gouging into his tongue. He didn’t feel any pain, but he could see a massive wad of bandages taped down over his cheek and feel the itch of dried blood on his throat. Timidly, he reached out and touched his father’s shoulder because he didn’t trust himself to try to speak. 

Lord Death lurched upright and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, Kid, you’re awake!” he said and took his son’s hand. “How do you feel?”

Kid stared at him and then pointed to his face. 

“Of course,” Lord Death said sheepishly. “How stupid of me.” Then, he handed Kid a pad of paper and a pen. “Here you go, son.”

The first thing Kid wrote was ‘Where are the others?’

Lord Death smiled softly. “They’re alright. Tsubaki gave everyone a good scare. It was close with her since that bullet went in through her side, just missed her internal organs. BlackStar’s still out cold, but he’ll come around. He has a hard head. Liz needed some blood but I gave some for her. Patty’s in with her now. That girl was absolutely covered in blood,” he trailed off.

‘What about Maka?’ Kid wrote.

“She’s…” Lord Death hesitated but Kid underlined the words darkly with his pen. “She’s gone. Yuca took her away along with Chrona and Soul.”

‘Why would she want Chrona and Soul? They’re only slaves.’

Lord Death bit his lower lip nervously. “You see, son…” He tried to take Kid’s hand but his son glowered fiercely until he removed his hands and said flat-out, “What Yuca wants most is a child and she knows her sister. If a slave was to impregnate Maka, Yuca would be able to take the child because Kami would sooner dash its brains out.”

Kid looked stunned, his pale face growing even paler until it matched the bandages on his face. The pen wavered on the pencil, but Kid didn’t know what to write. Suddenly, he threw back the blankets and put his cold feet on the floor, staggering into his father. 

“Kid! Where do you think you’re going?!”

He pointed desperately at the door, gesturing wildly until his father understood. He had to help Maka!

“No, no, Kid! You don’t understand what kind of monster Yuca is! After she did this to you, I don’t want you anywhere near her!”

Kid wrenched away from his father, but didn’t get very far. He was weak and dizzy and crashed to his knees in the threshold of the door. Lord Death gathered his small thin son up in his arms and deposited him back into his bed. Then, he sat in the chair at his bedside again and held Kid’s hand gently in his own.

“Kid, Yuca nearly killed all of you…”

Kid shook his head, golden eyes going out of focus.

“Yes, she did. If someone hadn’t called an ambulance, you would all be dead right now,” Lord Death said softly. “Listen to me, son, Yuca is a madwoman. She only wants a child and she’ll do anything to get one—anything! She would kill everyone in this entire city if it meant she could have a baby.”

Kid closed his eyes and pressed backwards into the pillows. His face looked pinched as if he was in pain. Maybe he was.

Lord Death squeezed his hand and smoothed the blankets over his son’s thin legs. “You just rest now, Kid. I’m going to take care of everything now,” he said but Kid didn’t even look at him. With a sigh, Lord Death stepped out of the white hospital room to where Stein was waiting. “You’ll make sure they don’t leave?” he asked.

Stein nodded. He had dark bags beneath his eyes. He had been up all night saving the kids’ lives. Silently, he took out his keys and locked the door to Kid’s room. “Be careful,” he told his old friend.

“You too, Stein. If there’s one thing our kids are it’s clever.”

Stein nodded. “I’ll come when I can.”

Lord Death rubbed his face, nodded, and turned to face Mari and Spirit where they were waiting. 

Just behind Spirit, Kami was standing with her face downcast and her eyes dark with sleeplessness. No one looked at her and no one mentioned that she had chased Maka and Soul from the house with her raging. Kami hated and feared slaves. They were only good for work and to care for them, to sleep with them as Maka had been, was a horror to her. Pair that with insomnia and grievous injuries and Kami had been like a ticking time bomb.

“I’m sorry,” Kami whispered. “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t—”

“We’re past that now,” Spirit snapped. His hands were clenched into fists. “All that matters now is getting Maka back.”

Kami sniffled and Mari gently patted her back before sliding her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Is Stein coming?” Mari asked Lord Death.

“He’ll come when he can, but it’s good to have him here with the kids.”

Everyone nodded, but no one moved. Lord Death didn’t want to leave his son while Kami felt guilty just breathing and Spirit was almost afraid to find out what state his precious daughter was in. Mari was the only one ready to go and she was the one to steer them gently down the hallway of Death Hospital. Then, the original five once again left to face Yuca Kishin.

…

It was getting dark. Soul was about ready to give up and just run away. He was in the middle of nowhere, lost somewhere in the deep black woods far away from Death City. He wasn’t even sure how he had gotten there. Had he run that whole way? Scraped and battered, Soul pushed back a branch of thorns and finally found himself on a skinny dirt road.   
Headlights reared through the trees but he couldn’t quite make out a car in the gloom. Like a frightened animal, Soul ducked back into the bushes and hid. Silently, a sleek night-black car slid past, kicking up dirt and gravel. He couldn’t see who was inside, but he knew anyway. It was Yuca’s car. 

Was this luck or a sign that said his death was near? 

Kami’s postcard had said that Maka would need him to die for her. Was it his time to repay her kindness with his life?

Soul took a deep breath and crept out onto the road. He looked first after Yuca’s car and then back down the road it had come from. 

On one hand, he could go down that road and never look back. What did he owe Maka anyway? She was his master, not his friend. Did he really owe her his life just because she saved him from being eaten back at the warehouse? He had taken a knife for her, saved her life even though he was only saving himself from a worse fate. Did that count? Were they even now? Could he leave and never look back?

On the other, he could follow Yuca’s car and try to save Maka, his master. He knew he would most likely die in the attempt and maybe it wouldn’t make any difference. Maka’s parents were surely coming to save her so they didn’t need his sacrifice.

Soul fingered his damaged mouth—the split in his lip, the sharp teeth beyond, the mutilation his mouth had faced. He couldn’t smile anymore. He looked like a monster with his white hair, crimson eyes, and filed-sharp teeth. He would never fit in anywhere. 

With Maka and her friends, he had come the closest he ever had to fitting in anywhere.

So, which road did he take?

X X X

Considering I keep throwing everyone for a loop since that really WAS Maka’s mother and NOT Yuca, will I follow my trend? Yet Yuca chopped off her hand, too… hmm, what do I have up my sleeve…? Which path will Soul take? The path less traveled by or will he run away and somehow get press-ganged back into the story by fate? Hahaha!

Man, you guys are all scary addicted to this story. I wonder what would happen if I didn’t update for like… a week… Mwuahaha!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	23. What Ragnarok Wants, He Gets

I feel weird using parenthesis… (And it’s a weird word to spell, too!) Does everyone know that when I use them, the words inside are actually a part of the story and not an author’s note? (Those are barricaded to the beginning and ends of chapters. They do not belong in the middle! Unless they’re numbered and moved to the end, which I do occasionally…) Some things just need parenthesis because they don’t really belong but I want to write them—extra information as it were. Get it?

Jeez, what a bizarre rant… I’m really losing it. 

But I have a bad head cold, so there!

X X X

Maka was sitting in the bottom of the stall shower, hunkered under the warm spray and half-heartedly kicking the door, when she saw shadows passing on the other side of the frosted glass. Immediately, she jumped to her feet, wrapped one arm over her breasts, and paused to see what was lurking on the other side of the barricaded door. There was a scraping sound as the barricade—she decided it must be a dresser or some other piece of heavy square furniture—was pushed back. Maka sucked in a breath as the rusted latch turned and the door was opened. Should she try to make an escape now or wait? She didn’t even know what lurked on the other side of the door.

Before she could decide, the shower door opened and Ragnarok’s white face peered in at her. His greasy black hair was streaked with sweat, thin lips pulled up in a smile, and dark eyes gleaming. He had removed the bandages and Maka saw that there were thick scars crisscrossing his chalk-white face. 

“Ragnarok,” Maka gasped out and smiled faintly. Despite their fight, even coming to blows over his treatment of Chrona and him asking her out on a date, he was here now and she was ready to forgive anything if it meant getting out of this new and special hell. (Whoever thought she’d get tired of being in the shower? Her papa always said she was part fish.) “It’s you! I’m so happy to see you!” 

Then, she jumped from the shower stall, wet and naked and careless, even leaving the water running. Her bare feet slid on the tile floor and he caught her by her shoulders, grinning faintly. Maka threw her arms around her old friend, hugging him tightly. Ragnarok’s big hands ran down her bare back and she heard him make a strange sound in his throat as he explored her bare skin. Was he looking for injuries or was there something on her back that merited touching—a bruise maybe?

“I’m okay, Ragnarok, really. Now, let’s get out of here!” 

She tried to pull away from Ragnarok, but he tightened his grip on her body. There was that sound in his throat again, a horrid sound like something a carrion eater would make. Like he was swallowing dead flesh and it frightened her. Maka tried to wrench away, but Ragnarok was so much bigger and stronger than she was. She was trapped like a fly in a spider’s web and she suddenly had the sinking feeling that Ragnarok wasn’t here to help her. She wanted nothing more than to get right back in the shower and hide there until her flesh turned into wrinkles and she just shriveled down the drain.

“Ragnarok! Let me go!” She protested just because she couldn’t give up so easily. She had to fight to the best of her ability. “What are you doing?”

“We could have been happy together, Maka, but you ruined it,” he said flatly.

Her blood ran cold in her veins. “W-what?”

“You could have been my girlfriend and I would have given you everything you wanted,” he said bitterly. “You could have had Chrona as a footservant and kept your precious Soul!” His chalky pale face twisted meanly. “You could have fucked them both in my bed. The three of us could have fucked you together! I wouldn’t have cared!” He shook her. “I would have done anything you asked. I just wanted you to be mine, but you wouldn’t let me love you, Maka.” His huge hands strayed down her back, found her ass, and squeezed both cheeks tightly. His fingers dug painfully into her soft flesh.

“Ragnarok, stop this!” Maka cried and pushed at his chest. “Please, let’s just get out of here! We can talk about this!”

“I’m through talking with you. I would have talked that day in class when I asked you out, but you chose a fucking slave over me! You chose Chrona over me! Chrona is a worthless insect!” He squeezed her ass harder, fingers worming down into her secret crevice. “No more talking, Maka,” he whispered. “The time for words is over.”

She squirmed and tried to struggle away, but he was holding her too tightly. There was no escape! He was too big and too strong—she was too small and too weak. “Ragnarok, please!”

“Please what?” he teased and she felt the first brush of his fingers where no one’s hands had even been before, not even her own.

“Please!” she sobbed and beat her small fists on his broad chest. Blind terror was welling up in her. What was he going to do? Did he really want her that badly, badly enough that he’d stoop to this? Do this to her?! “Let me go, please!”

He touched her, fingers cold but soft. “No, Maka. You lost your say in this when you punched me in the face,” Ragnarok said coldly. “Do you know what Yuca wants most of all?”

Maka sobbed. 

“She wants a child, Maka.”

She didn’t think her blood could get any colder, but it did. All the blood in her body rushed into her feet and she felt as if she was going to pass out. Only Ragnarok’s hold on her body kept her on her feet but she wished with all her might that he would drop her. 

Ragnarok leaned in, mouth against her ear so that his hot breath raised goose bumps all over her bare flesh. “Do you know how she’s going to get that child, Maka?”

“N-no…!” Maka begged. She dug her nails into his shirt, into his chest beneath, but Ragnarok only grinned as her legs buckled beneath her. 

He licked the shell of her ear and felt her shudder in his arms. “That’s right, Maka,” he purred. “You and I are going to make her a child. She’ll keep you until you give birth. Then, you’ll be all mine and I can do whatever I want with you. Consider yourself a slave now, Maka.”

“No!” 

Maka shoved at her betrayer, her rapist, her old friend. She was trembling wildly in panic and fear, but it was hopeless to even try to escape him. Ragnarok had her and he wasn’t going to let go anytime soon. He finally had what he wanted—her—and Papa wasn’t here to protect her from the hormones of crazed teenage boys as he always had. Even though she used to hate her papa’s overprotective streak, she would have sold her soul to have him charge into the room now. 

Her prayers went unanswered. 

A scream tore from her throat as Ragnarok kissed the side of her neck. He pulled back his head, fingering his abused ear. “Don’t scream, Maka. No one’s going to come save you. Yuca gave me some drugs and put restraints on the bed, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use them,” he said almost absently as he rubbed the side of his head. 

“Please, Ragnarok, don’t do this to me… please…”

He smiled. “I would have waited until you were ready once, Maka. Once I even would have lit candles and bought roses for you, but not anymore. Everything changed after you hit me. I don’t care what you want anymore. Now, I only care what I want.”

“P-please,” Maka sobbed. “Please, don’t…!”

Ragnarok pushed his fingers into her mouth and stared at her as she sobbed. “Are you going to scream anymore, Maka?”

Trembling, she shook her head. 

He removed his fingers to cup her ass again and leaned in, breath tickling her lips. “Then, I’ll be gentle with you.”

“Ragnarok, please—”

He kissed her, cutting off her protests and pleas. Then, he carelessly put one hand between her clenched thighs, found her slit, and pushed one thick finger inside her. Maka whimpered against his mouth, straining up onto her toes as if the extra inch would keep him from getting any deeper inside her. It didn’t. Ragnarok fingered her, stroked her, touched her, violated her, and there was nothing she could do to get away. 

For some reason, her mind went back to that conversation she had with Soul, about all the terrible things that had happened to him. She remembered that he was proud that he had never been raped and she was beginning to see why. She wasn’t even actually violated yet and she already felt like she wanted to die. How did some girls live like this after the fact?!

Maka sobbed into Ragnarok’s mouth, grabbed his shoulders, and tried to pull herself higher and farther from his hand, but it was still hopeless. Ragnarok moaned against her and then whispered cruelly, “You’re a virgin, aren’t you Maka? I can tell. It’s so tight inside of you. I can’t wait to get inside!”

“Ragnarok, please,” she sobbed. “Please, don’t do this to me. Please stop!” 

The shower was still running. It sounded like rain, like tears, like pain. It was fitting music to this scene. 

He grunted and then muttered, “I’m wearing too much.” He shoved her into the shower, slammed the stall door, and pushed the dresser in front of it again. 

Maka pushed half-heartedly against the cold door. She would do anything to escape, but she was damn trapped. She watched Ragnarok’s silhouette as he stripped out of his clothes, dumping everything on the vanity and then kicking off his shoes with a clatter. Then, she decided that when he opened the door again, she was going to punch him in the face and run for her life. Finally, Ragnarok pulled open the door and Maka launched herself at him, screaming. She managed her foot in his gut and her fist in his face, slipped on the floor, nearly fell, and then charged out into the bedroom attached to the bathroom. She ran to the door, grabbed the knob, and hurled herself at it.

The door didn’t budge. 

It was locked and Maka let out a sob of despair. 

Silently, his face red and livid, Ragnarok came out of the bathroom nursing his injuries. “You little bitch,” he hissed and closed the space between them. His body was like stone against her own and she had never seen so many muscles on a real person. He looked like a body-builder and she knew she would never manage to get away from him even if she kicked him in the groin.

“Please don’t!” Maka begged instead. 

He grabbed her wrists and slammed her up against the door. Then, he crushed her small body between his larger frame and the solid door, pressing all the air from her lungs. Tears dripped down Maka’s face desperately as she begged and pleaded, but Ragnarok was as deaf to her cries as he was to poor Chrona’s. He didn’t even bat an eyelash when he grabbed her thighs and jerked them over his hips. She felt his dick bump against her poor slit and cried out in fear.

“Maka, look at me,” Ragnarok whispered into her ear.

She shuddered, but wouldn’t lift her face.

He found her slit and pushed one finger in, relishing her little cry of anguish. “Look at me, Maka,” he repeated.

Finally, after a long moment of him working his finger in and out of her, she lifted her crying jade eyes to his face. He saw himself reflected there and his own features were twisted meanly into a sick smile. He loved this girl, had wanted her for years, and now he was going to rape her yet he didn’t even care. He understood now how Yuca had been twisted by her desires. Desire was worse than any rage and stronger than any love. He would have done anything to possess her and now he had her. Anyway, what did if matter if he hurt her? Maka had punched him in the face, turned him down because of Chrona, and then Chrona had escaped. Someone had to be punished and Maka deserved to suffer. He pulled his finger from her and showed her the juices on his hand.

“Look, Maka. Look how wet you are. You like this.”

“N-no,” she sobbed. “It’s just a natural reaction.”

Ragnarok snorted. “Think whatever you like, Maka. Your body is telling the truth.” He rubbed her moist slit with the tip of his cock and she whimpered, straining away from him even though there was no place she could possibly go. He licked her cheek and then kissed her, pushing his tongue deep into her mouth so that she cried out against him. “Maka, do you know how tall I am?”

“S-six foot six…” she whispered.

“Wrong.” He pinched her cheeks between his fingers, smearing her own juices on her face. “I’m six foot eight.”

Maka sobbed helplessly.

“Do you know how big my cock is, Maka?”

“N-no,” she whispered.

“Nine inches long, five and a half inches around,” he said proudly. (1)

Maka pressed both hands to her face, sobbing helplessly as Ragnarok held her over his massive erection. She knew there was no hope for her now. It was over! Ragnarok pushed her harder into the door with one hand, pinning her body there while her legs were slightly around his waist out of reflex, and rubbed himself through her slightly-moist folds. He knew this was going to hurt her—there was no way it wouldn’t even if he was being as gentle as possible. There was just no way and since she was a virgin she would probably bleed, too.

Grinning, Ragnarok leaned in on her face and whispered, “Ready?”

“Please, no,” she whimpered and dug her hands into her face.

He pulled them down so he could see every inch of her fear and agony as he positioned himself at her entrance. Then, he gripped her hips and slammed himself into her as far as possible. Several inches wouldn’t even fit. For a moment, Maka bit her lower lip, already swollen from being kissed, and dug her nails into his shoulders as she resisted a scream of agony, but Ragnarok wanted her to scream. He lifted her a few inches and slammed back in even harder as if to force in those remaining inches. 

Then, Maka screamed. She howled in agony as if her body was splitting apart right down the middle and, who knew, it probably was. She didn’t seem like she was ever going to stop so Ragnarok kissed her and forced his tongue into her mouth. Her screams choked off and Ragnarok began to move inside her. When he glanced down at his protruding inches, he saw bright blood and grinned. Slowly and deliberately, he began to fuck her. 

Thunk!

What the heck was that sound? He wondered. The shower was still running and Maka was quiet, lost in her agony he supposed. He pushed in deeper, eliciting a whimper from her poor swollen mouth. He let go of her shoulders and hips so that she was held up only by the strength of his dick inside her. More inches slid inside her and he felt the barricade of her womb. When she was his, maybe he would try to force his way into there, but Yuca wanted a baby and she would chop off his dick if he ruined that.

Thunk!

There it was again. He glanced down again, seeing the virgin blood and some resistant juices dripping from his shaft. Maybe it was Maka’s body slamming into the door as he pounded into her. He put his hands behind her back, not holding her up so that his dick was still forced in as deep as possible, but he didn’t want to strip the flesh off her bones with the rough wooden door. That was gross! Maka was silent, eyes screwed shut and teeth digging into her lip.

Thunk!

That’s when he noticed what she was doing. She was slamming her head into the door as hard as she could, probably trying to knock herself out. Ragnarok couldn’t have that. He gathered her up in his arms, holding her back lightly so that all her weight forced him even deeper though at least two inches still poked out. He carried her to the bed and lay her down on the rough cotton sheets Yuca had put on the stained mattress special for her little baby-machine.

“Now, now, Maka, don’t hurt yourself,” Ragnarok chided and thrust into her.

She let out a sob of agony and fisted her hands in the sheets. “Stop… please, you’re hurting… me…”

He kissed her. “You’re mine, Maka. We’ll make Yuca a baby and then we’ll go away and I’ll have you like this every day. We’ll do every position in the Kama Sutra.” He grinned and licked her neck, sucking the flesh there into an ugly purple hickey. 

“Please, stop… It’s hurts!”

Ragnarok felt the coil beginning to build in his balls. It was load he had been saving up for her and he grinned. “Tell me how it feels and I’ll stop, Maka.”

“It hurts,” she sobbed.

“That’s not what I meant,” he purred and stroked her face. “Like this—you feel so hot and tight and wet.”

She hurt so badly that she didn’t even care what degrading things he wanted her to say. She just wanted it to stop! She would do anything so she told him what she knew he wanted to hear. “Y-you’re… you’re so b-big,” she sobbed. “Ragnarok, you’re thick and hot and big! You’re enormous! You’re bigger than anything I’ve ever seen! Now, please, please, stop it…”

The coil burst at the sound of her sweet little voice saying those dirty whorish things and he spilled every ounce of himself inside her until he felt it seeping out because he had filled her to the brim and she was small to start with. He pulled out of her even though her impossibly tight cavern sucked at him. His dick was covered in his own semen and blood and more of the same was oozing from between her legs. No, more like gushing. There was just too much inside her.

“Clean me up, Maka,” he said.

“W-what?”

“Put your mouth on me and clean up this mess you made.”

“Please, no,” she sobbed. She was just lying on the bed like a broken porcelain doll, legs still spread from his intrusion and hands limp in the sheets. There was sweat standing out on her face and chest. Her honeyed hair was spread in a halo around her head. She looked like a fallen angel, destroyed with her wings ripped out now.

“Do it or I’ll take you again.”

Maka sobbed desperately, but realized there was no escape. Weakly, she slipped off the bed and slammed onto her knees with a thump. Her entire body was trembling in pain and terror as she grasped his thighs in her small hands. She was so tiny. Would he even fit in her mouth? No, he realized, as she opened it and weakly took the tip between her lips. Even if he forced her, he wouldn’t be able to fit. Instead, he watched she slowly licked him with much choking and coughing. Finally, she finished and Ragnarok was hard again. Did he keep his word to her or did he take her anyway?

On her knees, Maka put her hand between her legs and tenderly touched her abused slit. The amount of semen on her fingers was staggering and then she pressed her other hand to her stomach, imagining the child that might be growing even as she sat here. “It all came out… look how much…” she sobbed. “It’s all inside me…”

“Maka,” Ragnarok said finally after she seemed to have cried herself out. “Do you wish you had gone out on that date with me?”

Surprisingly, she shook her head so that her hair stuck to her wet cheeks. “This… this proves it. You’re a terrible person… I would never… ever want to be with you…”

Enraged, Ragnarok fisted his hand in her honeyed hair and dragged her to her feet. She let out a cry of pain and grabbed at her hair, hanging there like a fish on a hook. “Really, Maka? Really?!” he shouted at her.

“Y-yes!” she shouted with surprising vehemence. “You’re a terrible person!”

He slapped her.

“Please! Somebody help me!” she screamed.

Ragnarok wanted to punch her in the stomach because he had seen how crippling those blows were. Chrona usually threw up whatever meager little bit was in his stomach, but then he remembered the baby Yuca wanted and stayed his hand. Instead, he put his hand between her legs and pushed a finger into her brutalized pussy. Semen splattered on the floor and he groaned inwardly. He wanted to fuck her again, but letting that much out… it was just disgusting!

“Please, don’t!” she begged.

But Ragnarok had to do it. He had to punish her for what she did. So, he threw her face down on the bed, pinned her with one hand on her back, and spread her legs. Brutally, he took her from behind, stretching her further from this new angle. She screamed in pain, fisting her hands in the sheets desperately and sobbing, but nothing could take away from the anguish she felt. 

“Please, help me!” she screamed into the sheets, but no one did. 

No one got off the cross. (2) No one came back. Yuca didn’t come in and demand him to be gentle with her surrogate mother. (Yes, Maka would have taken even that!) Her papa didn’t appear with his fatherly protection and save the day. Her mother didn’t appear with her shrieks and anger, waving some household item. BlackStar’s loud voice didn’t break through her screams and Tsubaki didn’t come to comfort her with her gentle ways. Kid didn’t appear with his twin guns and his sister-slaves at his flanks. Soul didn’t come into the room with his ugly scarred hands and his soft blood-colored eyes and shield her. She was alone here and Ragnarok raped her again… and again… and again… 

She screamed well into the night until her voice left her.

…

On the road, Soul stopped and looked back up the dirt road and whatever lurked in the woods at his back. Someone was screaming. It was a girl. Maka, maybe? But it wasn’t his problem. He was only a slave and he was going to escape while he could before he could die. His life meant nothing to anyone—not even to Maka, not even to his new friends, not even to his parents—but it was everything to him and he was determined to keep it. Silently, he turned his back on the screams.

Overhead, the moon’s teeth dripped blood and then vanished in the clouds.

X X X

(1) As embarrassing as it is, I *ahem* Googled the average size and I made Ragnarok pretty massive because he’s a huge guy to start with so *ahem* moving on. The average size is about five to seven inches long and two and a half inches in circumference. So, Ragnarok’s is scary big… We will never speak of this again, okay? *flees, shrieking*

(2) “No one got off the cross” is kind of a vague biblical reference. As much as I hate all that godly crap (no offence to anyone who believes), I really like that: “No one got off the cross.” It just sounds cool, but I can’t remember for the life of me where I heard it.

What an effective chapter. Is everyone scarred for life now?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	24. Second Convergence of the Children

Should be the last filler for a while. I can’t just have everyone charging off without a plan. I need to direct them at least a little before they all run off on me! Does anyone else have that problem where your characters just completely run off on you and won’t come back or listen to what you want them to do? They do that to me a lot and it’s so bothersome!

It was very entertaining to get all the last chapter’s reviews. I got a lot of mixed messages—some people loved it, some hated it, some laughed, a few threats, a few strange faces. It was very interesting. I’m glad everyone made it through mostly unscarred.

X X X

Lord Death had arranged two cars for them—black Hummers, veritable Bradley Assault Vehicles. Spirit was in charge of driving the first one with Kami while Lord Death and Mari took over the second. Stein was staying behind to watch over the kids so still only four were going to face Kami, once again.

“So, where so we even go?” Spirit asked as they lingered beside the vehicles.

“You checked her old house, didn’t you?” Kami asked.

“Yes,” Mari answered. “Spirit and I checked it out but it’s clearly deserted.”

“Except for her name being written on the mirror in the dust,” Spirit chimed in.

“She must have taken Maka to the same place she tortured me,” Kami whispered almost to herself. 

Spirit put his arm around her shoulders gently and almost reached for her hand before remembering that Yuca had cut it off. “Where was that, sweetie?”

Kami shuddered against her ex-husband’s side and whispered, “The old Denbigh Asylum.” (1)

Lord Death nodded. “That’s where she belongs.”

“Actually, she used to be a patient there when it was open before all those bad things started happening. I checked her in myself.”

“That’s probably why she went back and tortured you there,” Lord Death said and patted Kami’s shoulder gently.

She nodded. “Yeah, Yuca’s a twisted bitch.”

“Alright, let’s go,” Mari said and pushed Kami towards the Hummer. 

Spirit, Kami, Lord Death, and Mari piled into their respective assault vehicles and headed off into Yuca’s past and present at the Denbigh Asylum and into the very heart of darkness again. Overhead, the bright buttery day was turning into a bitter black storm. There was no doubt about it. Things were going to get ugly.

…

Dr Franken Stein patted the pocket of his favorite patched and stitched lab coat, checking to be certain the keys to the kids’ rooms were still there. They were. So, with a sigh, he continued to the ER with his mind easy. There was no way these kids were getting out from underneath his watchful eye. He was certain of it.

…

Death the Kid waited until the hallway was empty of parental figures before getting out of bed, shoving the paper and pen beneath his arm, and limping his way to the door. Everything hurt, but he needed to check in on Liz and Patty. He finally reached the door and found it locked—locked! He peered out the little window, whishing his face didn’t hurt so much so he could swear. Then, he shuffled his way to the window and peered out. 

Bottom floor for the win! 

The ground was only about a foot and a half away. He heaved open the window, swung one leg out, glanced around, and then dropped down to the ground. He eased the window closed, leaving about an inch at the bottom so he could easily get back in. Then, he slunk along against Death Hospital’s outer walls and peered into each and every window along the way. Finally, he found Liz and Patty. 

Patty was sitting at her sister’s bedside, coloring and humming as if they hadn’t just had a brush with death. Liz looked pale and exhausted and there was an intravenous drip going into her arm, but her eyes were open and she was talking to Patty. That had to be a good sign, at least. 

Kid rapped on the window and watched as the both glanced around but didn’t see him standing there. He wished he could speak and call out to them, but his stupid injured face, stupid fork, stupid men attacking him in his stupid house! He rapped on the window again and waved vigorously with both arms. To the outside observer, he probably looked like some giant bird trying to take off, but he didn’t care how stupid he looked. He just wanted the girls to notice him.

“Look, Patty!” Liz said. “Kid’s outside the window!”

“It’s Santa!” Patty cheered.

“No, Santa comes down the chimney,” Liz explained. “Go open the window for Kid.”

Patty tripped her way over to the window, heaved it open, and stuck her head into Kid’s face. “Hi Kid!” she shouted. “Nice face bandage! What happened to you?!”

He pressed a finger to his lips and pushed her back into the room. Then, he scrambled in himself and closed the window. He went to Liz’s side and hurried scribbled out on the pad of paper, ‘Before you ask, my room was locked.’

“Locked?” she repeated.

Kid nodded. ‘Where are the others?’

“I don’t know. How’s your face? They didn’t like… destroy anything, did they? Why can’t you talk?”

‘My face is stitched up and it hurts. I’m fine, nothing permanent, but Stein doesn’t want me to rip the stitches out and cause any scarring,’ he wrote.

Liz let out a breath of relief. “That’s good.”

‘How are you, Liz?’ Kid asked via paper and pen.

“I’m okay. Your father gave me some blood. Stein thinks I’ll pull through without any lasting damage,” Liz said and glanced up at Kid. “Patty doesn’t remember anything.”

‘That’s probably best,’ Kid wrote. ‘She was like an animal.’

“She has bouts of psychotic rage where she defends anything close to her. Afterwards, she doesn’t remember anything about what happened or what she did. I suppose that just how her damaged brain deals with things,” Liz said sadly. “She just… doesn’t understand.”

They both looked at Patty who was gleefully coloring like a small child. She didn’t seem to remember anything, just like Liz said, but she was also completely unscathed. She was lucky. How would they explain how she had gotten hurt if she didn’t remember the attack? 

“She’s okay,” Liz continued. “Just leave her be. Where are the others?”

‘I don’t know. I was hoping your door was open so I could look around inside the hospital rather than prowling through the bushes like a cat burglar.’ 

“Check it,” she said.

Kid crossed the room, tried the knob, and shook his head. 

Liz sighed. “Why are we locked in here like rats?”

‘I’m sure my father is taking no chances in protecting us,’ Kid explained. ‘He doesn’t want us to follow.’

“I’d hate to burst your bubble, Kid, but not all of us are capable of following.” 

He stared at her, touching the damaged side of his face.

“From what I heard from Stein, Tsubaki was hurt pretty badly. It was close.”

‘We were all too close for comfort,’ Kid wrote. ‘I can’t stay here. Do you mind if I take Patty with me?’

Liz grinned at him. “You don’t honestly think I’d let you just go, do you?”

Kid stared at her and started to write, ‘You’re hurt—’

“And?” Liz smirked at him. “Give me one of your guns, Kid. You know I always have your back, no matter what.”

He smiled, heart glowing, and hugged her tightly while still being mindful of her injured shoulder. ‘Thanks, Liz,’ he wrote.

“It’s fine,” she said with a smile. “Now, it would be stupid of us to try to leave right now. Lord Death could still be on the premises and he’d rope us to our beds. We’ll have to wait until dark at least, but right now you can look for Tsubaki and BlackStar. Be careful. Don’t get caught, Kid.”

He smiled at her one final time, shouldered open the window, and continued slinking along the exterior of the hospital. 

Liz reclined against the pillows and sighed.

“What’s wrong, sis?” Patty asked and looked up from her drawing. She was using a lot of red, Liz noted, but the drawing wasn’t taking shape yet. It could very well have been a rose or a sunset.

“Nothing, Patty,” she said softly and turned her attention back to the television. Silently, she sent hope and courage to Maka and Soul wherever they were, some strength to poor Chrona so he could deal with life, and Godspeed to Kid. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, God, let’s all be careful and make it out of this alive.” She hadn’t prayed in years, not since that man had smashed Patty in the head with the fireplace poker. She didn’t know what brought her back to prayer now, but the thought made her skin crawl. What was waiting for them?

…

Kid continued his hospital-prowling and window-peeping with good results. He found Tsubaki’s room just next door to his own in the opposite direction he had originally started prowling. (He had literally missed them by a hair.) Kid knocked on the window, but BlackStar was slumped at her bedside sleeping like the dead and Tsubaki was asleep as well. She looked drawn and pale, dark hair like coal on her milk-pale cheeks. As much as Kid hated to wake either of them because all his friends definitely deserved all the sleep they could get, he knocked on the window again. 

With a start, Tsubaki sat up in bed and immediately pressed a hand to her side. She must have cried out softly because BlackStar was at her side immediately, supporting her back and putting his hand over hers on her side. Sweat was standing out on her pale face and she was breathing heavy. 

“What’s wrong, Tsubaki?” BlackStar asked. For once, his voice was soft and calm. 

“Nothing… just a nightmare,” she gasped out.

BlackStar pushed her dark hair back from her damp forehead and gathered her against his side tenderly. Such a rare gentle moment… It seemed almost impossible for him to be not only quiet but careful. (Kid decided Stein must have threatened to throw him outside or sedate him if he didn’t shut up and behave himself.) As much as Kid wanted to leave them to their moment, he needed to talk to them and rapped on the window a third time.

This time, BlackStar saw him and bounded over to the window after carefully laying Tsubaki back against the pillows. She clutched at his fingers for a moment, but BlackStar slipped her grip off gently. He pushed up the window up and helped Kid scramble inside. 

“Kid,” Tsubaki said weakly. “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”

He gestured to his face. 

“Aside from that,” Tsubaki said with a small laugh. “What brings you in here, Kid? And how’d you get out? Our door is locked.”

He scribbled on his pad of paper. ‘I snuck out the window. My door is locked, too. I just came from Liz and Patty’s room. We need to get out of here and try to help Maka.’

“Kid, I’m all for saving people, but we’re all hurt and we clearly don’t stand a chance against these people to start with..”

‘We were unprepared!’ Kid protested.

“Kid, there’s no guarantee they won’t just kill us all. Don’t you think this is rash?”

‘My father locked us in here,’ Kid explained. ‘We can’t just let Yuca hurt Maka. Don’t forget, she took Soul and Chrona too. Who knows what could be happening to them?’

“Kid, if your father locked us in then he doesn’t want us following.” Tsubaki patted his skinny shoulder tenderly and continued, “I’m sure Lord Death can take care of everything.”

‘He failed before! What if he fails again?’

“You can’t think like that,” Tsubaki said softly. “Kid, I don’t think you should do this. What if something bad happens?”

Kid turned away from her and faced BlackStar. ‘You agree?’

BlackStar squinted at the scraggly handwriting and rolled his shoulders. “Honestly, I’m all for saving Maka, but Tsubaki’s my master and I don’t want to leave her here. You were all probably almost killed because you didn’t have the GREAT—”

“BlackStar, remember what Stein said,” Tsubaki interrupted.

“Right, being quiet,” he said sheepishly and continued, “—the great me wasn’t there to help you!”

Kid turned back to Tsubaki. ‘Please,’ he wrote.

Tsubaki sighed. “Are the others behind you?” she asked.

Kid nodded.

“Alright,” she relented. “Then we’re with you too.”

Kid grinned and wrote, ‘Thank you, Tsubaki. We’re leaving tonight once it gets dark. I’ll come get you.’ 

Then, BlackStar helped him out the window and closed it behind him. He returned to Tsubaki’s side, sat beside her, and took her hand in his own. Gently, he stroked her knuckles and fingered the thick bandage on her hand. 

“Tsubaki, this time, I’ll protect you,” he said firmly. 

“BlackStar,” she began.

“Don’t worry,” he repeated. “You won’t get hurt again. No one will ever hurt you again, not while I’m here.”

“Thank you,” she murmured and squeezed his fingers. “Maybe you should get some rest before tonight, BlackStar.”

He nodded, put his head down on the mattress beside her hip, and was asleep within moments. Tsubaki stroked his water-colored hair, enjoying how he nuzzled into her touch like a kitten as he slept. Then, she too reclined against the pillows and fell asleep herself.

X X X

(1) The Denbigh Asylum is a real place. It’s closed up and broken down now, but it’s a gorgeous and imposing structure. It’s fantastic. If anyone wants to see pictures of it you can just Google it and a bunch of pictures show up! Or even try Flickr. com which is a great source for creepy fantastic buildings. Happy ghost hunting, everyone!

Yeah, no Maka and Soul in this chapter. Everyone else was behind and needed to catch up. Next chapter is Maka and Soul.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	25. Yuca's Decision and Soul's Spirit

Yow, looooong chapter! Just over 5,000 words. 

But I had some fun writing it. 

I had to rein some people back on track, namely… Soul and Death the Kid. You two are obnoxious! Especially Soul! Good thing you’re in separate locations or you’d really be making my life miserable! (Soul! Get back where you belong! Right now or I’m going to let you fall in a ditch. He just doesn’t listen to a word I say… How does Maka do it?)

X X X

When Maka roused from her black pit of unconsciousness, she was lying on the bed facedown with Ragnarok crushing down on top of her. She could still feel him inside her, soft now rather than the tearing pole she had become accustomed to over the course of the most horrible day and night in the history of her life. Gasping for breath, she wrestled her way out from beneath him, wincing as the soreness between her legs and the sick squishing noises that came from her as he slid out. She didn’t even want to know how much of his seed he had emptied inside her.

Gripping the wall for support, Maka staggered into the bathroom and ventured a hand beneath the spray of the shower. It had been running all night and the water was ice cold now. Sighing sadly, she shut off the water, closed the door, and pushed the dresser that had once locked her in the shower stall in front of the door. She wasn’t sure it would keep Ragnarok out, but it was worth a try. It would buy her at least a minute before her could barge in unannounced and have his way with her again.

His clothes were still on the vanity and Maka debated just remaining naked or putting on his clothes. Finally, she picked up his shirt and slipped in on, telling herself she was cold and naked and she was being stupid if she was thinking wearing his clothes after being raped was like marking herself as his property. 

But then she didn’t know what to do with herself. She couldn’t shower because the water was ice cold. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t cry because Ragnarok was just on the other side of the door and she didn’t want him to know how much he hurt her. She couldn’t anything!

Silently, Maka sat down on the vanity and drew her legs against her chest. She felt something ooze out of her and shivered violently with disgust. 

In the other room, she heard Ragnarok yawn widely and then call out for her. 

Maka put her hands over her ears and tried not to listen.

He knocked on the door. “Maka, you’d better come out,” Ragnarok called. “You’re mine, remember? And guys suffer from a little something called morning wood.”

Maka whimpered and whispered, “No more… please, no more…” but he couldn’t hear her.

“Maka! Open the door!”

“Ragnarok, stop shouting.” This new voice belonged to a woman—Yuca, Maka assumed. “Just push the door open.”

Ragnarok grunted and banged into the door. A moment later, he began pushing and the barricade slid neatly aside. Maka stared at him with wide fear-filled green eyes, but he didn’t care. He grabbed her by her wrist, dragged her off the vanity, and hurled her back into the bedroom. 

Maka’s eyes flashed over the woman who looked just like her mother, spotted the open door, and made a dive for it. Ragnarok caught her again and yanked her against his chest. She struggled helplessly against his hold, screaming and sobbing. She didn’t know where this sudden hysterical desperation was coming from but she knew she was frantic to escape him and his arousal. 

“I need to speak with her, Ragnarok,” Yuca said. Then, her lips curved and she glanced at Ragnarok’s attentive body. “But you may finish with her first.”

“No, please!” Maka gasped, but her cries fell on deaf ears.

Ragnarok threw her face down on the bed again, pinned her wrists above her head with one hand, and plowed into her. Semen and blood gushed down Maka’s inner thighs. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain and tried to ignore the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. With someone watching, with her aunt watching, Maka felt even more disgusting and used, but Ragnarok seemed to enjoy being watched. He drove into her with even more vigor and strength, hard enough that she felt his cock pressing into her stomach. She tightened her hands into fists in the sheets and hid her face, whimpering in pain as the sticky wetness ran down her legs.

Yuca watched silently as her niece was raped before her eyes with her fingers pressing on her lush red-painted lower lip. She looked as if she was watching a movie she secretly enjoyed, sculpted brows lifted and green eyes bright.

The darkness outside the window began to seep into the room like the fingers of the clutching Grim Reaper. Cold black night descended like the curtain to a stage and wispy clouds hid the pale face of the silvery moon. Tragedy was laid out for the scene and the audience was primed for watching like leaches ready for blood.

“Please, god,” Maka whispered into the sheets. “Make this stop…”

But as before, no one got off the cross and came to save her. 

She was alone in this Hell.

Finally, Ragnarok finished with her and pulled out with a squelch. Wetness trailed down the back of her thigh and she shuddered in horror. Maka crawled across the bed, desperately clutching at the sheets in white knuckled hands. Ragnarok caught her ankle and pulled her backwards towards him. Her nails dug into the mattress, tearing the threadbare sheets. 

“Ew, look at all the cum inside her,” Ragnarok hissed. He rubbed his finger through her secret place and showed Yuca. “Look at all my seed. I’m amazed there’s anything left inside me.”

Maka shuddered and drew her legs against her chest, whimpering into her knees.

“I’m sure I’ll get a child from you two,” Yuca said with a smile. “I’m looking forward to it.” Then, she eyed the bruises on Maka’s wrists and ankles. “Remember, Ragnarok, you are to be gentle with her. If she’s hurt, I will cut something off of you that you will surely miss.”

Ragnarok wet his lips. “I remember. That was from the first time, Yuca. She was struggling a lot.”

“I understand that,” Yuca said with a sigh. “But if I see so much as a hickey on her stomach, I’ll punish you.”

“I know, I know,” Ragnarok said. “The baby machine…”

Maka sobbed. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Yuca came to Maka’s side and ran her finger down Maka’s trembling back. Her hands felt like an old cold claw. “Come, child, I wish to speak with you.”

“No,” she whispered. 

“Yes, now get up or I will hurt Chrona.”

“Chrona!” Despite her own horrible predicament and the tearing pain between her legs, the reminder that Chrona had been stolen along with her brought Maka to her feet as if yanked by a string. “Where is he? Let me see him! You better not have hurt him!”

Yuca smiled. “Come with me, child, and you can see him.”

And so, Maka followed.

…

Ragnarok watched the heavy door swing shut in disbelief, mouth hanging open. How is it Maka jumped up like that without a care in the world for her injuries just for stupid Chrona?! It was unreal how much she cared for that stinking slave and Ragnarok wished he had planned ahead and made getting Chrona back a part of his deal with Yuca, but he hadn’t. Yuca wanted to keep Chrona for some sinister purpose and who was he to try to take him back? Hell, it was swiftly becoming Ragnarok’s dream to slaughter Chrona in front of Maka. He wondered just how loud she would scream if she saw that, if she tasted his blood on her lips and saw his pale flesh tear like paper.

He found his pants in the bathroom and yanked them over his hips. Maka was wearing his shirt, little bitch, so he went around without one.

He was going to head to the asylum’s dusty kitchen and get something to eat and something to refuel his engine. Even enjoying Maka so much, he was eager to leave. It was creepy staying in this place—the Denbigh Asylum, in this old mental institution, in the sanatorium for the insane—especially knowing that Yuca used to be a patient here and that she had gathered her two henchmen here as well. That and the place was creepy as fuck to begin with!

It was a giant imposing building built entirely out of giant grey stone. It was vaguely Victorian in design, very tall and square and almost like a castle, with many spires and turrets and a ton of windows most of which were boarded over or broken now. There were several other buildings surrounding it—a chapel, an administration building, a nurse’s quarters, an attached greenhouse, and then the giant spanning main building. As beautiful and archaic as if was, it had been abandoned for five years now. The entire structure was decrepit, dusty, and disgusting, but not even close to falling apart except for maybe a few places where the roof was broken and had rotted the floor below. It was a veritable fortress… and still creepy as fuck!

The gas had been shut off in the kitchen a long time ago, but they had brought a charcoal grill and a generator to power the mini-fridge they had dragged along. Nero and Kuro sans one eye with a thick white patch of gauze over it were sitting at a half-charred table playing cards.

“Hey fellows, how’s it hanging?” Ragnarok asked as he opened the fridge and rooted around inside. 

“Nottt ssso well,” Nero hissed out and Ragnarok shivered. No matter how many times he heard the pale man speak, his voice still unnerved him. It was like he was speaking with a mouth full of broken glass, dragging out the wrong sounds and snarling and spitting occasionally.

“What do you mean?” Ragnarok forced out.

“Well,” Kuro explained and fixed him with his remaining eye. “We had to listen to you fucking your little girlfriend all night. Do you think you could maybe shove a sock in her mouth so that rest of us can sleep? She screams like a banshee. That sound crept right into my nightmares and they’re bad enough.”

“Yesss,” Nero hissed, nodding in agreement.

“Yuca told me she wanted to hear us,” Ragnarok said as he pulled out half a meatball sub. “Can I have this?”

Nero nodded and Ragnarok dug in, but Kuro wasn’t finished. “Anyway, Ragnarok, if you could move on to oral and do her mouth or something, that would be great,” Kuro said sourly and dealt out a new hand of cards. “There are enough ghosts in this place without you adding her screams to the mix.”

“I understand,” Ragnarok said and shrank away like a scolded child. His giant ego deflated because when it came down to it, he was only big. He was only capable of beating up poor Chrona or maybe crushing a small opponent with his sheer size. He was no warrior. With his sub and a bottle of water, he scurried from the kitchen and the sound of cards slapping on the table followed him along with laughter. Was someone laughing? 

In the kitchen, Nero and Kuro glanced up at the ceiling silently and returned their attention to their cars. “This place…” Kuro said softly as he slapped out the cards. “…is full of ghosts. I don’t want to be here anymore, Nero.” Nero, with his dark hissing voice, was silent and didn’t respond to his old cellmate. 

…

Soul figured he had to be getting close to a real road soon. He had been staggering through the bushes and briars for what must have been an eternity yet he seemed to be getting nowhere. Was he wandering in circles?! He stopped in his tracks, ran his hands through his hair, and sighed heavily. Then, he scanned his surroundings, looking for something familiar, but all the woods looked the same. There was no way to tell if he had been here before. Soul knelt down in the carpet of pine needles and took a few deep breaths. If he didn’t calm down, he wasn’t going to get anywhere at all—period.

Suddenly, a shiver went down his spine and he felt like someone was watching him. He whirled around, but no one was there. He was still alone in the dark forest. It was just his mind playing tricks on him, he insisted to himself, but his mind wasn’t buying it. 

Something was out here with him!

…

Yuca led Maka silently through the dim destroyed hallways. Vandals and kids had gotten into the asylum despite the fence and boards and haunted atmosphere and done quite a bit of damage before they were expunged. On one wall, there was a giant mural of a dark orgy and the words ‘Welcome to Hell!’ Maka though that it fit her life perfectly as she held the shirt down below her butt to cover her intimate places, not that Yuca was even looking. Yuca trailed her fingers over the graffiti and it flaked off under her touch.

“This way,” she crooned to Maka.

“I’m following you,” Maka said flatly.

Yuca smiled. “I know, child, I wasn’t talking to you.”

Maka’s skin crawled and something broke beneath her foot. She didn’t look to see what though. She didn’t want to know.

Finally, they came to stop beside a thick iron door with a tiny barred window and pitch blackness inside. It was like looking into the abyss of nothingness, like looking into the eyes of death. Maka took a step back, heart in her throat and hands going around her body. Did Yuca intend to throw her in there? She thought Yuca wanted—no, needed—her to have a child.

“Calm down, child. You’ll give yourself wrinkles,” Yuca said and flipped on the light switch. “This used to be solitary confinement. I spent a lot of my time in this same little room… in the dark… just thinking about things. The darkness does a lot for your thought process.”

Somewhere, Maka heard a generator begin to hum and the light came in inside the dark room. She peered through the window and saw Chrona hunkered in the corner of the room, blinking helplessly in the bright light. 

“Chrona!” Maka shouted and threw herself at the door, grabbing for the handle. 

Yuca caught her wrist and dug in with her fingernails, wrenching Maka’s arms behind her back. “Ah, ah,” she said in a strange sing-song voice. “You see Chrona is alive and unharmed, only in the darkness, and you want him to stay that way, don’t you?”

“Chrona!” Maka shouted again and tried to pull away from Yuca, but it was a losing battle. She was hurt and exhausted and hadn’t eaten in a long time. Like a used doll, Maka slid to her knees at Yuca’s feet. Rubble and ruin bit into her knees and stuck to the sticky thighs. “What do you want from me?” she sobbed.

“A child. Once you give the baby to me, I will let you go with Ragnarok, no strings attached.”

“But I don’t want to go with him! He’s a horrible person!”

“That’s why I have one more thing to offer you, Maka, sweetheart,” Yuca said kindly and stroked Maka’s matted blonde hair back from her face. “You and Chrona may make me a child. You and Kuro or Nero could make me a child. I don’t care who just so long as I get a baby.”

“Why me?” Maka sobbed. 

“Because you’re my sister’s child and I am punishing Kami.”

“Why?”

“She’s the cause of all of this. She caused the accident that ruined my chances of ever having children myself. She checked me into this hospital when we were in our twenties. She’s the one who nearly killed me five years ago. This is all her fault!” Yuca took a deep breath and stroked the side of Maka’s face. “So, I am going to punish her. I’m going to make you have a child and then I’m going to take it away from both of you.”

Maka flinched.

“Don’t worry, child. I don’t plan to hurt you unless I have to. After all, you have done nothing to me.”

“Then why—?”

“Because of your mother! I just told you that!”

Maka hugged herself tightly. “I don’t want to go with Ragnarok. He’ll keep hurting me. Please… if I have this baby for you, will you let me go home?”

Yuca seemed to consider this for a long heart-wrenching moment and then she said softly, “I suppose so. I never needed that boy in the first place. I could have had anyone have sex with you. Maybe even that silver-haired slave I had pinned under the dresser…”

“Soul,” Maka whispered.

“Ah, what a lovely name. I remember another boy by that same name, a beautiful albino, but I think he was hurt in an accident…”

Soul’s words crashed through Maka’s head. “My own family sold me only because my hands were broken in an accident—”

“Y-you knew Soul before he became a slave?” Maka whispered. 

Yuca shrugged. “There wasn’t much of a window to know him. I think he was six when they got rid of him and he’d only been performing since he was five.”

“Performing?” Maka’s mind flew back to the Evans family of musical geniuses and the strange tattoo—or bruise—on his back that looked like an E surrounded by musical notes like buzzing bees around a flower. That was the mark of the Evans Family though it was usually reserved for their instruments. And Soul had confessed to her that he used to play the piano.

“Yes, Soul was a brilliant piano player if I recall correctly, a real prodigy. But then there was some kind of accident and his hands were destroyed so his family got rid of him.”

“Y-you know who Soul’s family is?”

“Hmm… oh yes,” Yuca said. “Do you want to know, child?”

Maka nodded, but Yuca grinned. 

“Give me my child and I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know.”

“But—”

“Yes, I suppose you must decide now who you want to have sex with. This is your chance to get away from Ragnarok,” she teased.

Maka glanced at the door that Chrona was locked behind and almost said his name, but she couldn’t do that to Chrona. She would practically be raping him and she could never do that, especially not when Ragnarok had told her that he already had. She also could never give herself to one of Yuca’s horrible henchmen. One of them had almost killed Soul just to get to her. Soul? What if Soul was here? Could she have sex with him? But he was so proud of never being raped and it would be the same torment for both of them. So, she had only one choice. 

“Ragnarok,” she whispered.

Yuca’s grin spread wider across her beautiful face. “Alright then.”

…

Soul cautiously pushed his way through another bush, moving slowly and quietly. Whatever was out here with him now he didn’t want to follow him. His skin prickled with goose bumps and he felt unnerved. It was watching him. Something was watching him and he had to get away. He tripped in the dark and nearly fell, letting out a squeak of surprise. Who was he kidding? Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks again, staring down at the place where he had knelt only seconds before. He was right back where he had started! He clearly wasn’t going to get away from whatever this was. He had to stand and fight or else be gunned down from behind like the coward he was. 

So, he took in a deep breath and shouted, “Who are you? Show yourself!” 

There was a small scream, childish and shrill.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

“I-it’s j-just m-me,” a small wavering little voice whispered from the bushes. 

Soul pushed the branches aside, but there was nothing there. 

“I-I’m s-sorry,” the voice came again. It was definitely the voice of a little girl. “C-can’t y-you s-see m-me?”

“Where are you?” Soul demanded and then softened his voice. “Stop playing games. Come out and I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“I-I’m n-not p-playing!”

“Where are you then?”

“Right. Behind. You.” The voice was suddenly strange, sharp and deep and mean.

…

Kid sneaked from window to window at Death Hospital, helping his friends out right under Stein’s nose. BlackStar carried Tsubaki on his back, piggy-back-style, because she was still feeling weak and hurting something awful. Kid put Liz’s good arm over his shoulder, wrapped his arm around her waist, and helped her walk. Patty, uninjured completely, bounded ahead of them in the darkness of the parking lot. She looked like a flashing ghost in the overhead lamps. 

Then, BlackStar hotwired Stein’s car in the parking lot because they figured it would keep him from chasing them quickly and give him some well-deserved grief for locking them in. They raced to Kid’s mansion to gather all the guns he owned and change out of hospital garb and into real clothes. After cutting through the crime scene tape, it took ten minutes to arm themselves and change. Then, silently, they met in the kitchen amid the pools of blood and looked each other’s pale faces over. 

Kid croaked out, “Ready?” 

Everyone nodded, but how could you ever really be ready for something like this?

…

Spirit and Kami were driving along at a breakneck pace on their way to the Denbigh Asylum to save Maka, their precious daughter. Lord Death and Mari were inches behind them. If a raccoon or something darted out now it was as good as dead. Then, the cell phone rang and Spirit answered quickly when he saw Stein’s number.

“Stein, what is it?”

“The kids are gone.”

“What?!”

“They must have gone out the windows. They even took my car.”

Spirit swore.

“Should I come join you?”

“You may as well. You’re no good to us at the hospital. Come as soon as you can and I’ll tell Lord Death that his son gave us the slip.”

“Better you than me,” Stein said and hung up.

“That was Stein?” Kami asked.

Spirit nodded and tightened his hands on the wheel.

“What happened?”

“The kids… they all slipped out of the hospital.”

Kami was quiet for a long moment and then asked, “Should I call Lord Death and tell him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll want to stop and wait for them and we don’t have the time.”

“What?”

“I said we don’t have time to waste.”

“But—”

“Kami! We don’t fucking have any time to waste!”

…

The shiver went down Soul’s spine again and he whirled around. There was a little girl just standing there with her hands folded in front of her and a little ribbon in her long dark hair. She had a cute little face and big dark almond-shaped eyes, a small mouth with a dark bruise at the corner, and her dark hair was matted with something Soul couldn’t quite make out except that it was white. She was wearing a long pale green t-shirt with the word ‘Patient’ on it in dark ink and no shoes or pants. But that wasn’t what made his skin crawl. It was the fact that he could see right through her like she was made out of glass and she even glowed faintly in the darkness. With a gasp, he fell over his own legs and landed on his ass. 

The little girl smiled wryly and whispered, “I’m s-sorry. Did I s-scare you?

“You’re a ghost, aren’t you?” Soul forced out.

“Yes. I’m dead.”

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Soul was debating running away from the dead like a normal person or continuing to sit here and chat with her like they were having tea and cookies. He was about to scramble to his feet when she spoke again.

“My name is Jacqueline O’Lantern Dupré. Isn’t it pretty? But he calls me Jackie and I don’t like it.”

“Who does?”

“The man who comes into my room at night and hurts me.”

Soul’s heart began to race as he eyed the word ‘Patient’ on her shirt. “Where did you come from?”

“The asylum,” she said plainly. “Mommy and Daddy think I’m crazy because sometimes I’m not Jacqueline.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes, I’m Kim.” She rolled her small shoulders and the shirt lifted. Soul saw streaks of dark blood on the inside of her thighs. 

“What happened? Why are you out here?” he asked.

“Because the man who hurts me and calls me Jackie even though I don’t like it came into my room and killed me. It hurt really badly. Then, he took my body out here and buried me and told everyone in the asylum that I’d escaped out my window, but Kim didn’t believe him. Kim knew I was dead.”

“Kim’s a friend of yours?”

“Yes. She lives inside me.”

“Inside you?” 

Jacqueline lifted a finger to her head and tapped. “Inside my head, that’s where she lives, or that’s what the man says, but I know she’s real.”

Soul began to put the pieces together, slowly but surely. This little girl said she came from an asylum and she was insisting that someone named Kim lived inside her head. She must have that weird mental disorder—Multiple Personality Disorder—and that was why she had been thrown in the asylum by her parents. He bit his lip and then asked, “So what are you doing out here?”

“I wanted to tell you that there’s a pretty girl in the asylum and someone is doing the same thing to her that the man in my room did to me,” Jacqueline said.

Soul eyed the blood on her legs. “Why would you want to tell me that?”

“Because it’s not nice. Someone should save her and you’re the only one around who’s not bad.”

“I can’t help her.”

“Why not?”

“I’m running away.”

“Why?”

“I can’t stay here.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t. Bad things will happen to me if I stay.”

“Did you kill someone?”

“No.”

“Well…” Suddenly, the little-girl-lost voice changed back to that sharp mean tone he had heard earlier. “You’re. About. To. Have. Blood. On. Your. Hands.” 

Soul whirled back to face the ghost without realizing he had ever turned away from her. “What did you just say?”

“Kim says you’re going to have blood on your hands,” Jacqueline said to him plainly. She plucked at the wrinkled shirt she wore and then smoothed it down after Soul caught a glimpse of her tattered pink panties. Someone—the man, as she said—had put this poor girl through hell and back.

“Is someone raping the girl?”

Jacqueline tilted her head. “What is rape?”

Soul didn’t want to explain it to her. “Is someone hurting her…” he hesitated “…hurting her between her legs?”

Her eyes welled up with tears and he wanted to hug her but he couldn’t. His arms would go right through her body. “Is that rape? Is it bad?”

“Don’t cry, just tell me what he’s doing to her.”

But she was sobbing helplessly into her small hands, showing bracelets of bruises. 

“Jacqueline, it’s okay. You’re dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“He’s dead, too. What if he finds me?”

“He won’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. People like him go to Hell.”

“Then I’m supposed to be in Heaven?” she whispered. 

Soul nodded. “Yeah…” Just like me, he thought and flexed his once-shattered hands.

She sniffled and wiped her face. “The man who’s hurting the pretty girl… His name is Ragnarok and he’s big. He’s making her bleed and she can’t get away. He’s come into her room so many times now and she can’t stop screaming.”

Soul stood up and looked back at the direction he came from. Maka, his strange kind master, her own friend was raping her. And Soul was running away. What would happen if he turned around and went back for her? He could die. He would lose this chance at freedom. But, didn’t he owe Maka his life? She had saved his after all.

“Are you going to help her?” the little girl asked.

“I don’t know if I can. What can I do?” he whispered.

“Kill. Them. All. Burn. The. Asylum.”

Soul glanced back at Jacqueline. “Where did he bury you?”

She giggled, pressing her hands to her mouth. “Silly, my body was eaten by the beasts. I don’t even have a body anymore.”

He felt a little sick at the thought of her laughing at that, but didn’t say anything. “If I go, if I help her, will you be at peace?”

“I don’t know,” Jacqueline said. “But I’d like it if you helped her.”

“I will,” Soul said softly and rubbed his face with his hands.

“Thank. You.” There was a moment of silence and then Jacqueline whispered, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure…”

“Where do you think we go when we die?”

Soul rolled his shoulders and opened his mouth to answer her, but he never got the chance. Suddenly, there was a sharp gust of wind and a peel of childish laughter and Soul was alone in the woods again. He shivered, hugged his arms around himself tightly, and began the long trek back towards the road that he had seen Yuca’s night-black car on. What was he thinking? This was suicide. 

But he went anyway.

X X X

I really enjoyed writing the whole ghost scene with Jacqueline/Kim and Soul! I love ghost stories!

It was so funny hearing all of your reviews. I can’t believe how many people were going to hurt Soul (or me) for not charging to the rescue. Jeez, everybody, take a breath. Everything’s going to be okay… maybe… hopefully…

Well, tension is building and everyone is starting to come together. This is going to be one blowout climax… maybe…

Questions, comments, concerns?


	26. A Deserving Man at a Kind Girl's Hand?

I’m having so much fun having everyone in a decrepit insane asylum. It’s so awesome! Turns out to be such a long chapter because I was having too much fun! Haha! I think I might belong in the insane asylum myself… Hehe…

X X X

The asylum loomed into the dark storm-ridden sky like a terrifying crazed version of Dracula’s castle. A lot of the windows, like great eyes, were boarded up while others were broken and some were barred. The great spire at the building’s center was decorated with a strange golden carving and the second tower behind it stabbed up into the stormy sky like an accusing finger. One of the countless chimneys was smoking black as if feeding the storm above. Even so, it was strangely beautiful like a spider perched in its silky web—deadly and untouchable yet still strangely lovely.

Soul stood on the edge of the overgrown driveway, hiding in the shadow of the forest, looking up while the scraggly weeds pressed against his legs. Silently, he listened to the pounding of his own ragged heartbeat and he heard Maka scream again, a shattered heartbreaking sound that made his skin crawl.

Several dark birds took flight from the trees, screeching and cackling like something from a horror movie.

Soul knew he had to help Maka, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he had to plan ahead just a little or else he was going to be crushed like an insect beneath Yuca’s stiletto heels. So, he prowled around the decrepit abandoned building, hoping to find both a way in that wasn’t the main door and something he could use as a weapon. As he picked his way over an old claw-foot bathtub and what might have once been a chair, he found both. One of the basement windows had been smashed in and there was a twisted lead pipe lying half-buried in the vines and weeds. 

Soul picked up the pipe and experimentally swung it. It was pretty heavy and would do some serious damage if he hit someone in the face. It would have to do. Then, he noticed a knot of rust in the threads. Was that blood? Cautiously, he scraped it with a fingernail, but it didn’t come off. A cool breeze blew over his body and he felt a slight weight pressing down on her shoulders, like someone was leaning draped across his back, and there was a soft whisper against the shell of his ear.

“That’s what he killed me with…”

“Jacqueline?” Soul whispered and turned around, but he was alone in this strange forgotten place. 

He shook himself and gave his cheeks a little swat to get himself back under control. If he didn’t breathe, didn’t calm down, he was going to wind up a patient in another asylum. Actually, being a slave, they would probably just outright “cure” him with electric shock therapy or something else equally cruel. 

So, Soul took another deep breath like air was going to go out of style, dropped down on his ass, and shimmied into the basement through the broken window. A shard of glass bit into his hand and spider webs pawed at his face. Something, probably a spider, crawled across his face and was gone. Shuddering, he stretched out a hand in the darkness and felt a lot of pipes and unpleasant wiggling things. Blind, he crept through the basement in search of the door that led upstairs into the asylum. 

Finally, his hand found a knob in the dark and he pulled the door open. A small sliver of artificial light was streaming down the narrow staircase and there was a veritable curtain of spider webs in the threshold of the door. Yuck, spiders were the most unpleasant of all bugs. Honestly, what on God’s green earth needed eight legs and eight eyes? It was just unnatural. With his pipe, Soul brushed down the curtain of dust and webs and crept up the steps, praying they didn’t creak or break under his feet.

His prayers were answered and he reached the top without anything unpredictable happening. There, he crouched, listening. He could hear voices and the tap-tap of high heeled footsteps—Yuca and one of the cronies. He held his breath until they passed, waited another minute just to be safe, and then eased the door open. It creaked something awful and right on cue, he heard Maka start screaming. Jolted out of his skin, he almost slammed the door in shock, but convinced himself to keep it open and slip out into the hallway. He figured out the direction of the scream, tightened his grip on the pipe, and hurried off in that direction.

The hallways were disgusting, ruined beyond repair. The plaster had been torn out of the ceiling and the walls in ghostly clouds, the linoleum tile was peeling up at the edges against the walls, wallpaper peeling off the walls in corners and stained all over, and paint peeling off like dead flesh. Vines had crept in through the broken windows, slithering across the floor like snakes. There was furniture broken all over the floor, heaps of rubble and dust, skeletons of rats and birds, crumpled equipment, and even an old wheelchair. Soul picked his way around all these things, listening at the door of each room he passed and peeking in through window. 

He couldn’t find Maka and was about to give up when she screamed again.

Quickly, he followed the sounds of her screams up a flight of stairs and down another decrepit hallway. Then, as quickly as he had been given a hint, it was gone and the entire asylum was quiet again. This was hopeless! Soul clutched at the pipe in his hands. What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to find Maka? A shiver went down his spine, like someone had trailed a cold finger down his flesh beneath his clothes.

“Are you… going to help…?” Was it a young man’s voice, soft and low? It was hard to tell.

“Yes,” Soul breathed.

“This… way… follow me…”

Unlike with Jacqueline, Soul didn’t see anything in the hallway with him but he felt a strange coldness in his chest as if an icy hand had grasped his heart and was pulling him forward on a string. Silently, he followed whatever was leading him through the twisted hallways of this dark asylum. Then, as suddenly as the strange feeling had come, it was gone and Soul was standing alone outside a door. 

When he crouched and put his ear to the door, he heard muted cries and whimpers and grunts and groans on the other side. Then, he peeked in through the window and saw Ragnarok’s white ass glowing like a target. Maka’s thin legs were stretched out desperately, thin as twigs compared to his massive frame, and her thin fingers were digging into his broad shoulders. Faint blood was trailing down his back, but that was nothing compared to the blood on her legs. 

Soul didn’t want to know how many times he had raped her already. 

Jacqueline was right. It was horrible!

There was a bolt on the outside of the door, usual for an institution for the insane. Soul slid it back slowly, mindful of any noises that might be made by the rusty bolt. He didn’t want to alert Ragnarok to his presence and give him any opportunity to use Maka as a shield or to call for help. Soul knew he was no warrior, not even a street fighter. He was just a skinny malnourished slave and Ragnarok could break him in half with just a bit of luck. Now unbolted, Soul eyed the hinges. They had been oiled recently so they shouldn’t squeak when he opened the door, not that he thought Ragnarok would hear him over the moans he was making, but he could never be too careful.

Slowly, Soul eased open the door and held the pipe low in his right hand, prepared to swing if some sick bastard was in there just watching Ragnarok rape Maka, but there was no one. It was only Maka and Ragnarok alone in the cell-room. He slipped inside and eased the door closed behind him in case anyone walked by. If he was cautious and lucky, they would think any screams Ragnarok made were only coming from Maka. 

Soul crept up on them slowly, watching where he put his feet. Suddenly, Ragnarok stopped his thrusting and lay still, grunting and moaning. He was finished and Soul’s window of opportunity was closing fast. When Ragnarok collapsed down on Maka, she saw Soul’s face and her eyes went wide and desperate. Soul put a finger to his lips, lifted the pipe, and knocked Ragnarok out with one quickly blow to the back of his head. 

The bastard never saw it coming.

Unconscious, Ragnarok’s body crushed down on Maka and Soul heard the breath rush from her lungs. Quickly, he laid the pipe on the bed, wrapped both arms around Ragnarok’s torso, and heaved him off of her. Ragnarok hit the floor with a thump, but Soul didn’t think anyone would come up to investigate. 

Maka was already sitting up on the bed, wrapping her arms over her breasts and folding her legs tightly. Her pale face was streaked with dirt and tears, eyes puffy from crying so much, lips swollen from rough kisses, and a small bruise on the corner of her mouth. Silently, she wiped her wet face and whispered, “Soul, I can’t believe you’re here.”

Soul glanced at the door, but no one was looming on the other side and the door was still half-opened as he had left it. Silently, he shrugged out of the shirt he was wearing—a plain white button-up that Kid had lent to him—and handed it to Maka. She quickly wrapped it around her shoulders and buttoned it up with shaking hands. Soul didn’t even look at her bared flesh as she hid her body behind his shirt, but she was looking at him. The scar that bisected his chest was almost healed now but the stitches were still in his flesh. They hadn’t had time to go to the hospital to have them removed.

Slowly, she reached out one hand and put her fingers to the scar on his chest. “Soul, I can’t believe you’re here,” she repeated.

He pushed her hand away and self-consciously crossed his arms over his chest. Suddenly, he wanted his shirt back. He felt even more naked than she was and he didn’t like that feeling. “I had to come,” he whispered to her. 

“To save me or to save yourself?”

Soul shied away. “Both,” he confessed. 

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah.” 

Suddenly, Maka stood up from the bed, staggered on weak legs a few steps to where he stood, Soul saw whiteness dripping from her and running down her legs and thought of Jacqueline’s tattered panties and smeared thighs. He felt sick with the thought of what had happened to both of them and that he had been going to run away and leave her to that fate. Silently, Maka wrapped her skinny arms around Soul’s chest tightly. He felt her tears on his bare skin, running down like rain, and for a moment he almost pushed her away because what reason did she have to hold on to him? 

Then, she sobbed into him, “Thank you. Thank you so much, Soul. Thank you.” 

And he couldn’t just push her away anymore. Instead, he hugged her tighter against his chest and dipped his face into her hair, cradling her tenderly as she cried her heart out against his chest. Her body was so small and frail, so easily overpowered, but a real man shouldn’t have ever needed to overpower her. He glanced at Ragnarok’s fallen body and there was some blood pooling around his head. Soul had clubbed him good and he probably wouldn’t be waking up for at least another hour but Soul still wanted to get out of this room, out of this place.

“Come on,” he whispered into Maka’s hair. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Maka sniffled and nodded slowly, but held on to him for a moment longer like he was her lifeline. Then, she finally stepped away, dried her eyes with the dirty sleeve of the white shirt, and looked down at Ragnarok’s body. “Did you kill him?” she whispered.

“No,” Soul said and glanced down at Ragnarok again. “I just knocked him out… I think, I hope.”

“Let me see that pipe,” Maka whispered.

“You can’t kill him,” Soul murmured.

“I’m not going to.”

“If you do, you’ll go to jail and I’ll go… back to the warehouse…”

“I’m not going to kill him, Soul,” she repeated. “I’m just going to… teach him a lesson.”

“You can’t…”

“Please.”

Silently, Soul picked up the pipe from the bed and handed it to her. He was her slave and she was his master. If she wanted to do something, he couldn’t stop her even if it would cost him everything—even if it cost him his very life. 

With her foot, Maka rolled her friend-turned-rapist over and stared down at something on his body—maybe his softening cock streaked with her blood, maybe the scars on his face that he had confessed while he was raping her that Chrona had done with a piece of broken glass because Ragnarok had raped Chrona too, maybe his impossibly huge frame that skinny Soul had beaten, or maybe she didn’t even see him at all. Either way, she knelt beside his body with Soul’s lead pipe, nudged his cock off his balls, and positioned the pipe perfectly on top of one. She sat like that for a long time, prepared to crush first one and then the other, but she couldn’t do it. No matter how much pain he had caused her and also caused Chrona, she just couldn’t bring herself to purposefully hurt another human being.

Soul stood silently above her, looking down, watching, until she finally shook her head and handed him the pipe. 

“I can’t do it,” she whispered and stood up on shaking legs.

“That’s okay,” he murmured. “Do you want me to?” 

For a long moment, she was quiet. Then, she shook her head slowly. “Why don’t I want to do this? He’s such a bad person… He deserves it!”

“You’re kind,” Soul said softly. His heartbeat slowed, relaxing. If his master couldn’t hurt the man who brutally raped her, then there was no need for him to fear that she would ever hurt him. Especially if he made sure not to wrong her.

Maka sniffled and then said flatly, “We should hide him.”

“Where?” Soul asked.

Maka looked around the room, eyes lingering on the stained bed, and then rolled up the sleeves of the borrowed shirt. “The bathroom. If I turn on the water, Yuca will think he’s just in there…” she hesitated, choking on the words, “… with me,” she said finally and was unable to say what she was really thinking.

Soul nodded. “That will work. Can you help me move him?”

Together, they each grabbed an arm and dragged the naked man into the bathroom, heaping him in the corner like a scarecrow past its usefulness. Maka started the water and cast one final glance at Ragnarok. Then she looked at Soul and silently took his hand as she had the night they escaped her house together. With her free hand, she put her fingers to the band of white flesh at his throat and then traced down the path of a scar on his chest. He had suffered a lot, but now they both had suffered in different ways.

“I understand,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I know why you were proud that you’ve never been raped.”

Soul flinched, his grip on her tightening.

“It’s awful,” she whispered. “I feel disgusting.”

“I know, I’ve seen it in others,” he whispered. “You’ll be okay, but right now, we have to get out of here.”

Maka nodded.

Soul squeezed her fingers slightly and offered her a small smile. “Let’s go,” he said. He took the lead pipe off the soiled bed again, tucked it under his arm, and peeked outside the door. The hallway was deserted so he silently eased the door opened and then slid the bolt home as he had found it. Together, he and Maka slipped down the hall, but they didn’t make it out.

…

Kid knew his father and the other adults had to be somewhere on the road in front of them and he knew where they were going. He had heard his father and Stein talking in his room while they thought he was still unconscious or asleep—the Denbigh Asylum. 

Now, Liz was sitting in the passenger seat giving him direction on the map in the darkness while he drove. BlackStar, Tsubaki, and Patty were in the backseat and the car was full but he wasn’t concerned. He knew his father was on the road somewhere and that he had planned ahead with at least two vehicles. There would be plenty of space for Maka and Soul. And, if by some stroke of bad luck, Kid reached the asylum before his father, they would work out someplace to put Maka and Soul even if they had to tie BlackStar to the roof rack. 

“Take this highway for thirty miles, Kid,” Liz directed. “Then we take the fifteenth exit—North Wales Avenue for about twenty miles. This asylum is really out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Cuckoo hut!” Patty said.

“It’s a place for the mentally insane and unstable, Liz,” Tsubaki said flatly. “They don’t want it in the middle of the city.”

“Funny farm!” Patty said.

“I know, I know. How’s your wound, Tsubaki?” Liz asked.

“Looney bin!” Patty said.

“It’s alright, but I still think we should have left this up to Lord Death and the others,” she said.

“Wacky shack!” Patty said.

“Patty, if you don’t stop it, we’re going to drop you off at one!” Liz snapped.

“No,” Patty whined but clammed up finally.

Kid let out a sigh of relief and winced at the pull in his damaged face.

As if to prove that she would do whatever she wanted regardless of what anyone said or threatened, Patty said, “Booby hatch!” and then was quiet for at least seven minutes. She was such a child, but that wasn’t really her fault.

It was that bastard who hit her!

And Liz’s fault, too…

Liz could only sigh sadly and refold the map in her hands. She knew Patty probably belonged in the nuthouse herself since that blow to the head so long ago, but she would never be able to bring herself to be separated from her sister. They were all they had ever had and all they ever would have. As slaves, it wasn’t as if she could ever really love Kid or anyone else for that matter. All she really ever had was her precious damaged sister.

…

Yuca was walking down to the kitchen when she heard a lot of banging and yelling in Maka’s and Ragnarok’s room. Either Maka had finally gotten the jump on Ragnarok or something bad had happened. Yuca unbolted the door and Ragnarok flung himself out at her. 

“Someone’s in here!” he shouted. “Someone clubbed me in the head!”

“What?” Yuca demanded.

Then, they both heard a crash.

“The kitchen!” Ragnarok shouted. 

Then, he charged off, naked and flapping, like some kind of animal. Yuca knew then that she had made a mistake with him and he would have to be eliminated as soon as possible. The stupid bastard cared only for pain and sex and she had no use for either of those things. She loaded her revolver and followed him to the kitchen at a leisurely pace as she picked her way over places where she knew the floor was weak or rotten. 

…

Soul and Maka were creeping down the back staircase when suddenly the stair creaked loudly and a horrifying shout went through Soul’s head, “Don’t go that way!” but it was already too late. The stairs beneath them, rotten and sagging, collapsed beneath their feet and they crashed down through the kitchen ceiling. Kuro, sans one eye, and Nero both looked up from their cards. For one long moment, everyone stared at each other—stunned.

Then, Soul jumped to his feet, stumbled over some of the debris that had fallen with them, and brandished his lead pipe. Maka scrambled up behind him, found a board with a few nails in it, and gripped it baseball-bat-style with both hands.

Since their last battle, Nero and Kuro weren’t taking any chances. They both pulled out guns and trained them on Maka and Soul. 

“Drop the weapons,” Kuro said flatly.

“Nowww,” Nero hissed.

They had no choice but to obey and dropped their makeshift weapons into the rubble that had crashed down with them. It was remarkable that they hadn’t been hurt, Soul realized as he looked at all the boards and nails that had fallen with them. He glanced up and caught a glimpse of something though he wasn’t sure exactly what. Jacqueline, maybe? Or was it something or someone else entirely? Either way, something had protected them during their fall.

Then, a blur of naked flesh charged into the kitchen and Ragnarok barreled Maka over. She crashed backwards into the rubble, a scream tearing out of her. Soul wanted to jump in and help her, but he wasn’t sure what the goons with guns would do if he suddenly moved so he stood there helplessly watching.

“You bitch! You knocked me out!” Ragnarok shrieked and got his hands around Maka’s throat.

She screamed desperately, wild eyes meeting Soul’s. He glanced at the two armed men and decided, the hell with it, he was probably a dead man anyway. He grabbed Ragnarok by his shoulders and tried to haul him off of Maka, but he was too big and heavy. Suddenly, Maka put her foot in Ragnarok’s groin and he howled, lurching back from her. Soul was still hauling on his shoulders and they went down in a heap, Soul crushed beneath his giant body.

“Get off of him!” Maka shrieked. She wanted to jump on Ragnarok, but that would just be more weight on Soul. “Ragnarok—” she glanced desperately at Soul and then lifted his shirt which she was still naked beneath. 

Soul, to his credit, averted his eyes, but Ragnarok was like a slavering dog drawn to a steak. Once he was off of Soul, Maka dove around him desperately and yanked her shirt down over her breasts and thighs again. Ragnarok caught her around the waist, yanking her back against his chest, and she let out a scream.

There was a gunshot, loud in the silence of their panting breaths. 

Ragnarok’s grip on her went soft and he slammed backwards into the rubble. Maka had been so intent on escaping him that once he let go, she stumbled forward and crashed into Soul. Quickly, he put his arms around her and pressed her close to his body. She didn’t realize that she was crying until she heard him quietly hushing her and bit her lip. 

“Don’t worry, child. He won’t hurt you anymore,” Yuca said. 

Maka peered over Soul’s shoulder at her twisted aunt. “W-what?”

“I have killed him. He was useless to me now.”

Maka glanced back and saw nothing where Ragnarok’s face used to be. His entire head was blown apart and there was blood, brain, and bone on the back of her white shirt. The walls were stained and dripping like a Jackson Pollock painting. She quickly put her face back into Soul’s chest, seeing his scar out of the corner of her eye and the ring of white around his throat. She fingered the skin of his waist, shivering in his arms despite his warmth. “Why?”

“He was violent, useless, completely ruled by sex, and uncontrollable. I have no use for uncontrollable people,” Yuca said with a wave of her good hand. Then, she saw Soul and walked towards them until she was looking down on the crown of his head. 

He tightened his arms around Maka.

“Hello. What is this? An albino?” Yuca murmured and slid her fingers through Soul’s white hair. He shuddered and Maka hugged him tighter, clutching him. She wouldn’t let Yuca take him away from her. “I do not recall taking this slave with me? Kuro, Nero, did we take this slave with us when we took the girl and the other slave?”

“Nooo,” Nero hissed.

“How did he get here?”

“I don’t know. He fell through the ceiling,” Kuro explained.

There was a moment of silence as they all looked up through the hole in the ceiling of the kitchen and the rubble around them. 

“Huh, if he’s found us then the others must be on their way, too,” Yuca said pensively as she stroked the top of Soul’s head. “We should leave and come back when things are finished…” she eyed Maka with something strange in her green eyes “…finished baking.”

Maka whimpered and Soul felt her pressing her hands to her stomach. He whispered her name and Yuca tugged his hair painfully.

“Alright, Nero, Kuro, Maka, and her little slave, here is what we will do.” Yuca crouched down beside Soul and Maka and began touching Maka’s hair instead, stroking the matted ash-blonde tresses. “I am going to lock you up since your friends are on their way to save you, but I am going to take the violet-haired slave with me. When you have my baby, I will trade to you the precious purple-haired slave for my child. That is fair, yes?”

“But—” Maka protested.

“Why would you want to trade a slave for a baby? Because, my dear, I will be tormenting your precious slave, but I am not without a heart. I will not start doing it until nine months from this date. There is no sense in tormenting him during something you cannot make go any faster. You give me my child and I will give you the slave,” Yuca purred. 

Maka whimpered. “Why are you doing this to us? To me?” 

“Because I am punished my sister and I want a child,” Yuca said. “This is a fair deal for you, Maka. You give me the child of the man who raped you and I will give you the battered slave you have wanted all along. This is why I took the slave to start with though I see now that this one I had pinned under the dresser would have worked just as well.”

Soul shivered and tightened his arms around Maka. 

“I tell you what, you can choose which one I take with me for the next nine months—this one with the silver hair or the violet-haired one?”

Maka clutched Soul tighter and whispered, “Take Chrona.” As much as it killed her to condemn Chrona again, Soul had saved her.

“Chrona is…?”

“The violet-haired one.”

Yuca stood up and smiled down at Maka. “Alright. I will see you in nine months, sweet Maka,” she said and patted her niece’s head one final time. “Nero, Kuro, let’s go.”

“W-wait!” Maka shouted.

They paused and looked at her. 

“P-please, be kind to Chrona for as long as you can. He doesn’t deserve to suffer.”

Yuca returned to crouch beside Maka. “Will you definitely give me my child?”

Maka nodded.

Yuca caressed her face. “I will be perfectly tender and sweet to your friend, but if when the time comes and you deny me the child, I will not hesitate to torture him in ways you never thought possible. I will flay the flesh off his eyes and back. Do you understand?”

She nodded again, eyes welling with tears.

“Very good,” Yuca said. “Now, come with me so I can lock you safely away.”

Soul stood up still holding Maka tightly against himself, half-carrying her. Yuca smiled at them both strangely and led them back upstairs to the room Ragnarok had raped Maka in. There, she locked them inside coolly and they heard her high heels tap-tapping as she walked down the decrepit hallway. Then, the entire asylum was silent as the grave save the sudden crashing of the storm outside as lightning forked through the twilight-painted sky.

X X X

Farewell Ragnarok! You were a bastard and your name was a bitch to type out anyway. Good riddance! 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	27. Arrival at the Asylum: Pt I

Short chapter, but a lot of ground covered. I deserve a short chapter after that last few monsters anyway. Up to the plate—the first round of adults! And here’s the pitch…!

X X X

There was a veritable train of people on their way to the abandoned asylum where Yuca had been a patient five years ago. First, Lord Death leading the charge with two Hummers and his three right hand people—Spirit and Kami Albarn and Mari Mjolnir. Just behind him, unbeknownst to Lord Death but known to Spirit and Kami, was Death the Kid and his friends—Tsubaki Nakatsukasa and BlackStar and the Thompson Sisters, Liz and Patty—in Stein’s borrowed/stolen car. Behind them, driving like a madman, was Dr Franken Stein. All were in a rush towards the Denbigh Asylum, hoping to arrive there in time, but Yuca was already long gone by the time even Lord Death arrived.

Overhead, the storm finally broke.

…

Lord Death’s caravan pulled into the cracked parking lot of the asylum just as it began to rain. Spirit pulled in just behind him and was out of the Hummer before Lord Death even put his car in park. Kami and Mari were inches behind him. Lord Death was last and they all gathered on the cracked front steps while the rain gushed down on them and the asylum loomed overhead like a black castle. A few windows were lit with warm amber light and a generator was humming somewhere. 

“We shouldn’t barge right in,” Mari said cautiously. “Yuca’s probably waiting for us inside.”

Spirit pulled out the revolver Lord Death had armed them with. “I don’t care. My Maka is in there. I’ll shoot her in the face and there will be no chance for her to come back.”

Lord Death put his hand on Spirit’s shoulder. “If she kills you, you won’t be able to save Maka. Think this through, Spirit.”

“You’re right…” Spirit lowered the gun. “What should we do?”

“Pair off,” Mari said softly. “I’ll go with you and Lord Death can go with Kami.”

“Why can’t I go with Kami?” Spirit snapped.

“Because we don’t want two hysterical parents charging in together. You’ll feed off each other, but if we separate you, you’ll remain calmer and be of more use to us. Plus, Lord Death and I are level-headed and can look at this situation from a better angle,” Mari explained. 

Lord Death nodded. “I agree with Mari.”

“So do I,” Kami agreed.

“We should also go in through entrances Yuca might not have thought to cover. I’m sure she’s watching the front door so we need to go in through the back,” Lord Death continued calmly as he brushed wet hair out of his face. 

“Yes, definitely,” Kami said. “But my sister knows this place like the back of her hand. She’s probably rigged traps all over.”

“We’ll need to be careful,” Mari continued. “Plus, this building has been abandoned for five years. The floors could be rotted out. The ceiling could come down on us. It’s not a safe place.”

Spirit sighed. “Alright, let’s go. Mari,” he said.

Mari nodded, tucked wet golden hair behind her ear, and followed Spirit around the corner of the looming structure. Kami and Lord Death went off in the other direction, quickly disappearing in the darkness of the woods. Overhead, lightning forked through the darkening sky and a cold wind blew the rain down in slanting sheets. It was a miserable night, dark and dangerous and perfect for taking on a crazed woman in an abandoned asylum.

…

Lord Death found a broken window on the second floor and waved to Kami. He cupped his hands for her and gave her a boost into the wide sill. Once she heaved herself through, she offered him her hand and struggled to help him scale up the wall and into the asylum. Luckily the door to the room they had managed themselves into was open, but that was where their luck ended. The floor just outside the room was gone, collapsed down like a mouth of spikes into the floor below.

“Great,” Kami said and wiped water out of her eyes. “How do we get over that?”

“Very carefully,” Lord Death said and looked around the room by the flashing lightning for something they could use to bridge the gap. He found a long broken board and part of a table and slid them across the yawning mouth of broken rubble. “I’ll go first.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Kami said with a small smile.

Lord Death put his revolver in the waistband of his jeans and carefully crept across the makeshift bridge. It shook nervously, but held. He waved Kami forward and took her hands when she was within arm’s reach. 

“Let’s keep going,” he said softly.

“It’s so dark. Flashlight?”

Lord Death pulled out a heavy Maglite with a grin and made a creepy face at her in the dark.

“Don’t play,” Kami said with a swat. 

Together, they crept down the dark hallways of the asylum. They checked in every room they passed, but each cell was deserted and ruined. The floorboards under their feet creaked eerily as they walked and the flashlight sent ghostly shadows skipping about. Rain dripped inside in places where the roof was broken in and streamed in through broken windows. Then, Kami heard it. Someone was crying, sobbing desperately and begging for help. It sounded like her daughter!

“Maka!” Kami shouted and charged ahead in the dark.

“Kami, don’t!” Lord Death yelled and rushed after her.

She found the cell where the sound was coming from, grabbed the door, and wrenched it open. The sound assaulted her even louder and she raced inside calling her daughter’s name. Lord Death’s pounding footsteps followed her and then the light of his flashlight filled the room. It was empty except a tape recorder that was spinning, spinning, and spinning. The crying and sobbing was coming from that and Kami gathered it in her hands. 

“What is this?” she whispered.

Then, the tape reached its end and a man’s voice said, “End of session with Jacqueline O’Lantern Dupré. No progress.” The tape ended and began to rewind. Then, it started again—the endless terrible crying of a little-girl-lost.

“Lord Death,” Kami whispered. 

Then, the door behind them slammed closed the there was the awful sound of the lock sliding home. Lord Death threw himself at the door, but it was helplessly locked. He shined the flashlight through the little barred window and saw fine wires of fishing line attached to a fantastic trap-rig that Yuca must have created. Dangerous, the woman was not only insane but brilliant and dangerous.

“Damn it!” Lord Death swore.

“What is it?!” Kami asked. Her voice trembled.

Lord Death took the recorder from her hands and shut off the pathetic crying of some little girl during her therapy session. “Yuca laid us a trap. She set up a rig outside that locked the door on us and she clearly put this in here to lead us in. This is an isolation cell on top of it! There’s no getting out of here—no windows and one heavy steel door with a little barred window that a cat couldn’t fit through. We’re trapped.”

“Do you think the others will find us?” Kami whispered.

“I hope so,” he said and punched the door.

“We should save the flashlight batteries,” Kami whispered. 

“I brought extras and we want them to know we’re in here if they walk by.”

“Oh.”

Lord Death slid to the floor, folded his long legs, and made himself comfortable amid the rubble of the isolation room. 

Kami continued to stand, clutching the tape recorder, and then he heard her brokenly whisper, “This is my fault again… This has all been my fault…”

“It’s not,” he said tiredly. “It’s no one’s fault except maybe Yuca’s.”

But she didn’t seem to hear him. “It I hadn’t freaked out when I saw Maka sleeping with that slave, if I didn’t send her postcards, if I had killed Yuca when I had the chance, if…” She dropped to her knees and hugged her legs tightly, sobbing into her knees. Lord Death allowed her this moment and simply turned the flashlight away from her.

…

Mari and Spirit found a broken door, peeked inside with the flashlight Lord Death had given them, deemed it safe, and pushed inside. In the dark, Spirit tripped over something broken and old on the floor and warned Mari. She tripped regardless, but caught herself on the wall. The paint peeled away under her hand, crackly and disgusting so that it all stuck to her wet flesh. Something crawled on her and she batted it off, unnerved. 

Spirit shined the light on her, smiling faintly. “Find a spider, Mari?”

“Give me the light,” Mari hissed to him and he passed her the heavy flashlight. Then, she forged on ahead blindly, but stopped to wait for Spirit when she came to an intersection of hallways. “Which way should we go? You know how I am with directions.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Spirit said with a shrug. 

Mari blinded him with the flashlight good-naturedly, chose left, and continued on through the ruined asylum with Spirit at her heels. 

When something snagged at her feet, she paid it no mind. After all, there was such a general snapping, cracking, catching, and dragging going on because of all the rubble on the floor that she really had no reason to pay attention to what her feet were doing. Aside from desperately trying not to trip in the dark, that is. 

When there was a small metallic ping, Mari had no real reason to pay any attention to that either amid the snapping, crackling, and crashing the storm was causing. 

But when the floor beneath their feet suddenly gave out, she had every reason to pay attention and to scream. The entire section of floor opened up like a great mouth, maybe collapsed was a better word and they both went crashing to the floor below. Luckily, the gaping hole dropped them into the patented “padded room” that every asylum had and though the stuffing was moth-eaten and sagging, it cushioned their dangerous fall.

Groaning, Mari sat up and put a hand to her head. The flashlight had fallen somewhere, but no light was coming out—it must have broken in the fall. “Spirit? Are you okay?”

He mumbled something.

“What was that? Where are you? Are you stuck?”

Something beneath her shifted and Spirit forced out, “You’re sitting on me, Mari.”

“Ah! Sorry!” She jumped to her feet, tripped in the pitch-darkness, and smashed into the padded wall. “I’m sorry. I blundered us into this.”

“I’m sure Yuca laid traps everywhere. We would have found one sooner or later,” Spirit said and sat up. He picked a long jagged splinter of wood from his hair.

“Do you think the others fell into a trap, too?” 

“Probably.”

Mari put her hands to her face. “What do we do now?”

“Well, considering we fell in a hole, we should wait for daylight and see if there’s a way out. It’s too dangerous to try anything now. We could kill ourselves on a spike of wood we can’t see,” Spirit said after a moment’s thought. 

“What about the others?”

“Let’s hope they fell in a padded room, too.”

Mari giggled despite herself. “I always knew you belonged in a padded room, Spirit, and it seems someone agreed with me.”

“Why you—!”

X X X

Short chapter, but I wanted to keep the blundering adults confined to one area. Kid’s kids are next on the list. Are they going to meet the same fate as the adults? Will Soul and Maka will have to save them all? Or do I have something sneaky up my sleeve? You never know with me! I could kill off half my characters! Mwuahaha!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	28. Arrival at the Asylum: Pt II

Another short chapter, but lots of ground covered and some tender moments.

Alright. I’m getting better. Getting some sleep and getting less stuffy.

X X X

Kid pulled up beside his father’s twin Hummers, broke out umbrellas because he planned ahead like that, and helped everyone out of Stein’s borrowed/stolen car. Then, he passed out guns to BlackStar, Tsubaki, and Liz. Everyone had agreed it was in their best interest not to arm Patty because she might wind up shooting shadows or one of them or herself. By now, the storm had whipped itself into a fury that nearly blew them away and it was hard enough just to keep the umbrellas from turning inside out. They huddled close together and waited for a small lull in the wind so they could wrestle their way up to the abandoned asylum.

They were halfway up the cracked steps when Patty suddenly stopped dead and screamed, “No! We can’t go in there!” She yanked on her sister’s injured arm.

“Ow! Patty, that hurts!” Liz shrieked and clutched her injured shoulder. 

“We can’t go in there!” Patty repeated.

“Patty, we’re saving Soul and Maka, remember?” Tsubaki said patiently. A sudden gust of wind nearly blew her over but BlackStar hitched his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close before she could topple. She sent him a grateful look. “Patty, come on.” 

“No! We’ll die!”

“We won’t die. You have the great BlackStar as protection this time! And I will not be defeated by a door,” BlackStar said proudly. He was strangely quiet, unnerved by the atmosphere of the storm and the asylum and Patty’s screaming. He tightened his grip on Tsubaki. 

Patty stomped her foot, splashing mud up to her knee. “No! There’s a trap inside the door. Big guns go—BOOM!—if we open it!”

“What do you mean, Patty?” Liz asked. “How could you know that?”

“The little girl told me,” Patty said and pointed to the space beside her where no one was standing. The storm howled with renewed vigor, wrenched Patty’s umbrella inside-out and tore it away from her. She didn’t come under her sister’s umbrella, just continued to stand in the rain and insist that something dangerous was inside the door.

“Patty, no one’s there,” Liz said gently. She approached Patty, sheltered her with her umbrella, and tried to lead her little sister towards the steps. 

Patty dug in her heels, yanking Liz’s injured arm again. “No! I’m not lying!” she shouted.

“No one thinks that,” Tsubaki said gently and helped BlackStar clutch the umbrella as the wind and rain tore at them again. “Come on, Patty. We’re going to save our friends now.” BlackStar took a step towards the asylum, pulling Tsubaki closer with him. “Let’s go, honey,” Tsubaki called back.

Patty’s eyes rolled wildly. Suddenly, she shoved her sister brutally aside hard enough that Liz fell in the mud, plowed Kid flat, raced to the door, grabbed it with both hands, yanked it open, and dove immediately to the side. The sound of gunfire was deafening even in the storm of the night. If they had opened the door and been standing in the threshold, they all would have been blown away. Patty had been right, but how had she known that the trap was there?

“Patty,” Liz whispered as Kid helped her to her feet and wiped the mud off her face with his sleeve. “How did you know that was there?”

“I told you, the little girl told me!” Patty shouted again. The rain plastered her pale honeyed hair to her face and shadowed her crazed eyes. She was panicked with the thought of her friends and family getting hurt, just like she had when they had been attacked at the mansion.

“What little girl?” Tsubaki asked again.

Patty pointed to the empty space beside her again. This time, there was scraggly bush turned over in the mud at least beside her.

“Patty, there’s nothing there,” Liz whispered.

“No, there’s a little girl!” she insisted.

“Patty, there’s nothing—”

“Hold on, Liz,” Kid croaked. He winced at the pain in his face. “You remember what happened to Patty, what you told me…” He had Liz’s trust and she didn’t want anyone else to know what she had been through and he respected that. “Well, my father believes that those who have had a brush with death can see things no one else can see. They’re minds are opened by their experience and children especially have this ability. Patty is sort of both so what if what Patty sees is the ghost of someone who died in this asylum?”

“That’s not…” Liz stared at her sister and remembered her body lying before that fire, bleeding, while that horrible man fucked her. Patty had been close to death and it was miracle she was survived without even more damage to her mind. “Kid, you don’t think…?”

He nodded. “Let’s listen to her. Patty, where can we get in?”

Patty grinned, sloshed through the mud, and pointed to a broken window just beside the door. “Boost!” she said cheerfully over the wail of the storm.

“Let’s go!” BlackStar hooted, suddenly uplifted.

“BlackStar,” Tsubaki hissed. “Be quiet! What if Yuca’s still here?”

“I’ll kick her ass! I’m ready for anything!” he shouted into the night as he crossed to the broken window, punched out the remaining glass, cupped his hands for Patty, and boosted her up. “Kid, you should go in next so you can help the girls,” he said in a moment of careful concern.

Kid nodded, passed Liz his umbrella, and allowed BlackStar to boost him up into the window. Patty was waiting on the other side to help him to the floor, grinning like a jack-o-lantern in the darkness of the hallway. A flash of lightning illuminated her face and the surroundings in a flash.

“Look out,” she said cheerfully. “There’s a broken chair there.” 

But Kid didn’t see anything in the dark, even with the addition of the lightning. He took a flashlight from his pocket, flipped it on, and handed it to her. Then, he leaned out the window and helped Liz inside. Next, they both helped Tsubaki and Kid finally gave BlackStar a yank. Just like that, they were all safely inside the asylum—well, maybe not safely, but at least they were out of the storm.

“Should we keep the umbrellas?” Liz asked and wrung water from the ends of her hair.

“May as well. Who knows what’s in here?” Tsubaki said and squeezed the hem of her shirt. “We can use everything we’ve got.”

“Kid, anymore flashlights?” Liz asked.

Kid nodded and produced two more from somewhere in his pants. It was miraculous the things that came out of his pockets sometimes—everything from candies to batteries to ammunition to flashlights. It was how he had originally gained Liz’s trust in the warehouse. He had food in his pockets and a moist towelette for the dried blood on Patty’s face. Even now, Liz didn’t know the secret of his bottomless pockets, but she was glad he always had something for every situation.

Then, BlackStar lifted Tsubaki onto his back and passed her both guns so she could shoot anything they came upon while he carried her. The wound in her side was hurting her something awful. Liz handed Kid all the umbrellas and held her gun in her good hand. Kid brought up the rear and Patty took the lead, chatting amicably and pointing out traps and obstacles as if she was leading a tour.

“Patty, maybe you should be quiet,” Liz suggested. 

“Don’t have to! No one’s here but Lord Death, Spirit, Kami, Mari, Soul, and Maka,” she said cheerily and began to whistle.

“No Chrona?” Tsubaki asked at the same time Kid croaked, “No Yuca?”

“Nope, nope!” Patty said and stretched out her hands to touch the wall. Suddenly, she let out a sharp scream.

“What?!” Liz demanded. “What is it?!”

“SPIDER!” Patty shrieked and then giggled. 

“Jeez!” BlackStar shouted. “You nearly gave me a HEART ATTACK!”

Tsubaki put her hand over his mouth with a sigh and Liz patted her friend’s back with a small smile. Yeah, BlackStar was loud and obnoxious but at least he was lightening the mood. Kid would have said something, but his face still hurt. Stupid forks, from now on, his household was going to be eating with chopsticks. Patty giggled again, eyes glowing in the darkness and face shadowed eerily by the amber glow of the flashlight. 

Then, Patty suddenly stopped in her tracks and threw her arms out to stop her friends. “We can’t go this way. The floor is rotten here.”

No one questioned how she knew that this time. Instead, they simply followed as she turned around and weaved a new path through the ruined halls of the asylum. Along the way, she acted as if she was on a pleasant walk, chatting and laughing and making shadow puppets on the stained walls with her flashlight.

“We need to find our friends,” Patty suddenly said to the thin air. Her voice was serious, a sharp change to her happy tone. “Can you tell me where they are?” She paused, listening though the others only heard the sounds of the storm. “Okay!” She pushed open a door, led them down a staircase, and flipped a light switch on the wall. 

They were in a kitchen now, dirty and disgusting but clearly recently used. Everything was disturbed though it was hard to tell since the entire asylum was in such ruin. Rain was slanting in through a broken window, pooling on the floor. There were footsteps in the dust and a lot of rubble on the floor from a gigantic hole in the ceiling. Lying in the rubble was a naked body, face blown off, but they could tell by the massive frame it was Ragnarok.

“What the hell?” Liz whispered and almost went to check for a pulse before shaking her head and backing up. “What happened here?”

“Yuca shot him!” Patty said cheerily and toed the body with a laugh. “Dead, dead, dead!”

“Where’s Maka?” Kid croaked and fingered the bandages on his face. 

“This way!”

…

It was dim in the room Yuca had locked them in—no windows, door closed, and the single bare bulb flickering lamely overhead. Soul was sitting quietly beside Maka on the soiled bed, long legs folded comfortably. She was quiet with her arms around her bare battered legs and huddled deep in his white now-bloodstained shirt. She had scrubbed her thighs and core and was happy to find that nothing was dripping from her now and she didn’t look raped without the marks on her thighs. She was exhausted and would have loved to sleep or shower, but something kept her on the bed with Soul as if something under the bed would grab her if she put her bare feet on the floor.

Soul fingered the band of white on his throat and then ventured, “What are you going to do?”

Maka sniffled. “I don’t know… What can I do?”

He didn’t have anything to say to that so they sat in silence for a long moment.

“Soul?”

“Yes?”

“T-thank you for coming here to help me. You could have just left me, had your freedom while no one was looking and left everyone to die.” She sucked in a breath. “Everyone’s okay, right?” 

“I think so. I called an ambulance before I left the mansion.” Should he admit he had turned his back and almost left her to rot in this place if not for the ghost of little Jacqueline? No, that was probably not the wisest thing to say.

Maka shivered. “Soul, would you tell me the truth if I asked…?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“What are you going to ask me?”

“Why did you come to save me?”

He lowered his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe…”

“Please.”

“A ghost asked me to help you.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “That means… you weren’t going to help me at first?”

He realized immediately that he had made a terrible mistake and snapped his head up. Her face was smooth and calm, but her eyes were filling with tears. “Maka, I—”

“I understand,” she whispered. “Why would you want to help me? But it’s still… it’s a hard thing to hear.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“I’ll forgive you, if…”

His heart began to race. What was she going to say, demand of him?

“Soul, will you play the piano for me?”

Even though that was nothing horrible, his heart leaped up into his throat and he nearly choked on it. “I… I can’t…”

“Please.”

“It’s not that, Maka. I really can’t…”

She lifted her eyes to his face, waiting, watching him.

“I told you… I was hurt in an accident…” Cautiously, he held out his hands for her and she stared at his ugly hands for a moment. There was a massive twisted scar across the back of one hand, scars down his fingers which she noticed now were slightly crooked, scars on his knuckles and palms, scars and twisted bones all over his hands. “My hands were… shattered… I don’t have the… dexterity to play the piano anymore…”

He was about to pull his hands away, but she caught them and held them gently in her own. She stroked the scars and felt his twisted fingers, touched the calluses and cuts. Beneath the flesh, his bones felt crooked but healed. “What happened?” she whispered.

He shook his head and tightened his fingers around hers. “It was only an accident…”

“Soul,” she whispered and then leaned into him, resting her face in the bend of his neck and shoulder. He inhaled sharply, but didn’t pull away. His body was so warm and she could smell the forest on his skin. He was such a comfort to her even here and now, sitting silently on the soiled bed, and she wouldn’t have traded him even if it meant having her body and virginity back. She wanted to keep Soul with her, just like this…

Then, the bright beam of a flashlight sprayed in through the tiny window of the door, swept the room, and they heard a cheery shout of, “Here they are! I found them! Found them!” 

Was that… Patty’s voice? 

There was the sound of the lock sliding back and then the door was heaved open. Kid, Liz, Patty, Tsubaki, and BlackStar were standing in the threshold. They all looked a little worse for the wear and were armed to the teeth and BlackStar was carrying Tsubaki on his back, but Maka had never been so happy to see them in her life. She jumped to her feet and rushed to them without realizing she had started crying until Tsubaki and Liz were both gently embracing her. Soul joined Kid and BlackStar, accepting a few brotherly pats and answering some questions about what had happened. Then, someone initiated a group hug and they all just stood there, locked together tightly.

Outside, the storm finally broke.

…

When Stein finally arrived, everyone was sitting on the steps of the asylum. The adults all looked a touch sheepish, but the kids were huddled together like penguins sharing warmth. Lord Death quickly explained to Stein everything that had happened. He started with the traps Yuca had laid for them and ended with that she had expected them in the first place because Soul arrived to save Maka. (Maka viciously protected him when her mother flew into a rage that he had ruined their chances to surprise Yuca and Spirit helped his wife into one of Lord Death’s Hummers with a sigh.) It was decided that they all needed to go home and regroup. Silently, they reconfigured the driving arrangements and headed back to Death City.

Maka didn’t tell anyone about what Ragnarok had done to her and neither did Soul.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	29. Nightmares that Wait at Home

Urg, still sick! And MY insomnia is acting up on top of it… but I think I’m getting better! 

Now I must escape my bizarre dreams. I had an entire dream about fighting the Fire Lord with Zuko and Aang last night… Weird, right?

X X X

It was good to be home and even better to shower and dress in her own clothes. Maka was becoming sick of the sight of her own naked flesh, hidden beneath Soul’s-borrowed-Kid’s-white-shirt. When she finally came out of the bathroom, drying her ash-blonde hair with a towel, she could hear Soul clattering about in the kitchen peacefully, as if nothing had happened, and went to see what he was up to. She had been locked in the bathroom, scrubbing herself red-raw and crying for everything that had happened, for at least two hours. He had been in the kitchen when she went in and was still in there now. What on earth was he making in there? 

“Soul?” she whispered and stepped into the kitchen, padding on bare feet. 

He was standing at the stove, hunkered deep in a heavy sweatshirt, a hoodie, and a few t-shirts as if to make up for the time be went bare-chested, and busily cooking away at three pans. Maka touched his arm and he didn’t jolt as she had expected. Instead, he slid his hand over hers for a moment, rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, and then returned his attention to his cooking. 

Maka peered over his shoulder. “That smells good. What are you making?”

Soul was quiet for a moment, absently stirring the fried rice in the pan as it sizzled. Then, he said slowly and carefully, “Your father and mother are here.”

Maka dug her fingers into his arm and gasped out. “What?” 

He pried her nails out of the sweatshirt and patted her hand gently. “Your father brought groceries for dinner,” Soul said softly and dipped his head as if to hide his face.

That was when Maka saw it—there was a new collar around his neck, heavier and uglier than the first. It was a strip of thick black leather with chains woven through it and plates of hard cold metal. Immediately, she put her hands to it and searched for the release, but all she found was a heavy lock. It required a key. 

Horrified, she cupped his face in her hands and whispered, “Who put that on you?”

He pushed her hands away. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Soul—”

“I’m just a slave,” he muttered.

Maka stared at him hard until he slid his gaze to the floor. “That might be so, Soul, but you’ve earned not wearing that horrible thing. You came to save me and that… that thing is there to stop you from hurting me,” she put her hand on his shoulder. “I know you won’t hurt me so I don’t want to hurt you.” Then, she grabbed his rough ugly pianist hand and yanked him away from the stove.

“Dinner will burn,” he protested and dug in.

“Let it burn,” Maka snapped. “Come with me, Soul.”

He had no choice but to follow her as she dragged him into the living room where her parents were sitting on the couch, shoulder to shoulder, with the television on but ignored. She put her arm around his waist and pulled him close, suddenly feeling weak, but she had to do this.

“Which one of you put this collar on Soul?” Maka snapped at her parents.

Kami’s green eyes flashed to the side, guilty, but Spirit quickly intervened between the two most important women in his life. “Now, now, Maka, your mother has her reasons—”

“Her reasons don’t matter!” Maka shouted. “Soul is my—!” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but she was far from just letting this go. “Give me the key! Right now!”

“Maka, honey,” Spirit tried again. “Can we talk about this?”

“NO!” she shouted and thrust out her hand. “Give me the key! Right now!”

“Maka—” Kami tried.

“Damn it! Give me the key!”

Kami lifted a black remote from the pocket of her light jacket and showed it to Maka. “If you don’t stop shouting, I’ll hurt him.”

Soul tensed beside her and Maka grit her teeth. Dangerously low, she hissed out, “Give that to me, Mom. Give me the key and that remote.”

“Actually, Maka, we need to talk about him. It’s not appropriate for a young lady to have a male slave,” Kami continued. 

Maka was shocked. She felt her mouth begin to open and close like a fish out of water. Yuca had just taken her captive and locked everyone in an abandoned mental institution and all her mother was concerned about was that Maka had Soul, a boy, as her slave?! What the hell was wrong with this world, wrong with her mother, wrong with everything?! 

Despite herself and what she had been through, Maka clutched Soul tighter to her side but he didn’t put his arms around her as he had at the asylum. The closeness between them was broken now and she felt in her bones that Soul was afraid—afraid to be returned to the warehouse, afraid to be hurt, afraid of what was going to happen to him now that he had sacrificed his one chance at freedom to rescue her. Well, she wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.

“You’re the one who told me to go to the warehouse and buy him, Mom,” Maka said icily. 

“Not him,” Kami said slowly. 

“Yes, him, that’s what your postcard said! Should I show it to you?!”

“That’s not what I meant, Maka,” Kami said slowly. “You weren’t supposed to buy Soul, as you call him—”

“He used to be Eater,” Maka interrupted. 

Kami looked desperately at Spirit and he pinched the bridge of his nose between hi thumb and forefinger to ward off the coming headache. “Maka,” he began slowly and carefully. His daughter was like a bomb about to go off, inches from the edge, and Soul was pale with worry. “Your mother intended for you to purchase a bodyguard slave by the name of Free, but your gentle personality got sucked off track.”

“What?” Maka whispered and tightened her grip on Soul. “The postcard said he was in danger, in need of my help, and Soul was about to be eaten alive. He needed my help!”

Spirit shook his head. “Free was sick in the warehouse. He needed to go to the hospital for special medicine that they won’t give to slaves unless their masters request it. That was the real danger,” he explained to his daughter.

Kami shuddered on the couch beside him. “Free is dead now.”

Maka’s heart raced and she felt nauseous. 

Someone else was dead? 

She wasn’t supposed to have saved Soul? 

What? 

What?! 

WHAT?!

“What?” she whispered and hugged Soul’s waist harder so that she felt his hip dig into hers. “You mean… Soul was supposed to die.”

Kami nodded, face dark and she opened her mouth to speak, but Spirit silenced her. “If it’s any consolation to you, sweetheart, Free (1) was supposed to die for you anyway when you were attacked by Kuro in the rain that night.”

“But Soul survived…” Maka whispered.

“He did.”

“How did you know that these things were going to happen?”

“Yuca is your mother’s twin sister. Twins have a strange connection,” Spirit said softly. 

“What about Free then?” Maka whispered. “How did you know he was supposed to die for me?” Her heart skipped a beat and she leaned hard in to Soul. “How can you play God like that with people’s lives? Saying he was supposed to die? Saying Soul was supposed to die?” Her voice rose an octave. “How can you say those careless things?! Do you care nothing for the lives of other people?!”

Coldly, Kami looked into her daughter’s face and said plainly, “Maka, sweetheart, slaves are not people.”

For the first time in her life, Maka felt a bubble of hatred for her mother and allowed that rage to sweep her away. She pulled away from Soul, who had suddenly tightened his grip around her hips, and swung on her mother with nothing but blind anger. 

As before when she fought Ragnarok in the classroom at school, Soul got his arms around Maka’s frail body, picked her up so that her lashing feet were in the air, turned her around, and set her back on the ground before she could hurt her mother. Then, he hugged her from behind as if to shelter him with his body, with the curve of his strong shoulders and the cage of his ribs. He put his lips against the shell of her ear, whispering, “She’s right. We’re not people. Let it go, Maka.”

But Kami still hated slaves and still had that remote in her hands. She stomped the button labeled one and watched as the slave gently embracing her daughter seized up in agony but somehow managed not to scream. The electricity coursed through his veins like blood and then he felt the burning in his flesh. This was an old collar, maybe more than three years old, and it short-circuited. The hideous smell of burning flesh filled the house, but Soul still didn’t scream and still held Maka. She tried to get away from him, begged him to let her go, screamed at her mother to stop hurting him, to stop doing this, and even begged her father. 

Towards the end, even Spirit tried to pry the remote away from Kami’s hands, but she wouldn’t let go. Finally, for the first time in his life, Spirit hit not only a woman, but a woman he loved who had once been his wife. The remote slid across the floor while Kami cupped her face in surprise, jade eyes filling with tears. 

Maka couldn’t get out of Soul’s arms, but she hooked the remote with her bare foot and got it into her hands. Quickly, she noticed a section in the back of the remote that slid away and found the small key for the collar. She unlocked it, pulled it down gently being mindful of Soul’s burned flesh, and threw it across the room. Then, she tightly put her arms around him, hugging his as he trembled against her in pain, and ordered her mother to get out of her house. 

For a long moment, Kami just sat there, crying. Then, Spirit pulled her to her feet and pushed her towards the door. Once she was gone, he returned to where his daughter was tightly embracing this strange slave of hers, Soul. “Maka—”

“Get out!” she snapped and glared up at her father dangerously. “You won’t take Soul from me and you won’t hurt him.”

Spirit gently put his arms around both of them. “I never wanted to take him from you, Maka, but your mother—”

“I don’t care what she wants, Papa,” Maka whispered and the rage suddenly left her. She suddenly felt exhausted. “Soul is mine.”

Spirit smiled softly and recalled the first time he had laid eyes on Soul. It had been right after Kuro had gutted him like a fish, after Soul had protected Maka in the rain, and he stood by what he had seen then. Maka was still protective of him and Soul had stretched out a fine strand on trust to his daughter. For a slave as scarred and damaged as Soul, that said a lot for Maka’s gentle heart. Then, sadly, Spirit recalled threatening Soul to protect Maka or else go back to the warehouse to die. He knew Soul had had a large window of opportunity to leave Maka in that asylum and if he had been in Soul’s place he would certainly have left his master to die, but Soul hadn’t. Whether that was because of Spirit’s threat or something else entirely, Spirit didn’t know, but he knew he owed this boy a lot and he owed his daughter even more for the lies she had lived with. 

“I know, princess,” he whispered and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to have a long talk with your mother about Soul.”

“I won’t get rid of him.”

Spirit felt the muscles in Soul’s back tense and Maka hold him tighter. “I know, baby, and I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Maka relaxed. “Really, Papa?”

“Yes. Now, I brought groceries and Soul was cooking away. Have something to eat, try to get some sleep, and we’ll talk more tomorrow. Okay?” Then, Spirit kissed her forehead again and turned to leave. He heard footsteps following him and another set heading for the kitchen.

“Papa?” Maka ventured and he turned to face his daughter.

“Yes?”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

Startled, Spirit asked, “For what?”

“All these years when I thought you cheated on Mom and I hated you… I’m sorry,” Maka murmured. Then, for the very first time in these past five years of rough life, she hugged her father tightly. 

Stunned, for a moment, Spirit just stood there. Then, he glanced up from the top of Maka’s head and saw Soul standing in the threshold of the kitchen and the battered young man made a hugging gesture with a small smile. Then, Spirit wrapped his arms tightly around his daughter and just relished holding her for as long as she allowed him to which turned out to be a surprisingly long time. He kissed her forehead again, smiled, and left the house to rejoin his ex-wife outside.

“I don’t like that slave being alone with Maka,” Kami said bitterly the moment the door closed. “And she took off my collar!”

Spirit turned his face to the sky and smiled at the memory of Soul motioning for him to hug Maka. “Come off it, Kami,” Spirit said. “Maka’s not going to let you interfere and neither am I. That boy isn’t going to hurt her.”

“But—!”

“Kami, let it go,” Spirit said coolly. “We have more dangerous things to worry about. Soul is not going to hurt Maka.” And so, he started walking with a smile on his face despite the situation and Kami fuming at his back. Maka forgave him, loved him, and hugged him. So things could be better, but life was still good.

…

Soul saved dinner by the skin of his teeth and was very concerned with whether or not it would still be good. Maka was more concerned with his cooked neck. She made him sit down at the table while she fetched the first aid kit and tended the burn. Upon closer inspection, the burn wasn’t as bad as it looked but she was sure it was still very painful. She dabbed some aloe on it and wrapped the length of his throat in white gauze. The gauze around his neck didn’t look much different than the band of perfect pale flesh hidden beneath that hideous collar.

“Soul,” she murmured as she secured it with a small square of tape, “I’m sorry.”

He put his hand over hers on his throat, wincing at the slight pressure. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Why didn’t you stop Mom when she put it on you?” she whispered and lowered her hand from his throat to his shoulder. His hand followed her, warm and wonderful.

A strange expression crossed his face. “I… mentioned that you didn’t want a collar on me anymore, but she…” he hesitated and lowered his eyes.

Maka squeezed his shoulder and his fingers slid through hers. “Soul, what did she do to you?”

“She threatened to get rid of me while you weren’t here to stop her… so I begged her to put the collar on me instead.”

“You begged her?”

He nodded and pulled his hand off of hers. “Anything is better than going back to the warehouse. You know what would happen to me if I went back,” he murmured and fingered a bite mark on his wrist.

“Oh, Soul,” Maka whispered and carefully hugged him. His body was so warm and thin against her, nothing like Ragnarok’s massive frame, and she knew Soul wouldn’t hurt her so she wasn’t even afraid. Slowly, he put his arms around her, rubbing her back gently. She was content to hold him and be held forever.

But, his stomach growled loudly.

Maka grinned and released him so she could see his pink embarrassed face. “I guess you’re hungry, huh?”

He smiled sheepishly and she glimpsed his pointed teeth. “How could you tell?”

“Let’s eat!”

…

After dinner, Maka watched a little television while Soul was in the shower. She ran her hands over her flat stomach and worried about whether or not she might be pregnant, but it was too soon to tell. Her period was due the end of the month—right now, all she could do was wait and worry. On the one hand, she didn’t want to be pregnant. She didn’t want to go through the pregnancy, she didn’t want a child of rape growing inside her. On the other, she needed to give Yuca a child so she could save Chrona. What could she do? What should she hope for? Everything was so confusing and strange and horrible. What could she do…?

Then, Soul joined her on the couch. His crimson eyes seemed to glow in the dark, searching her face. She smiled faintly at the concern in his expression and told him that she was alright. Then, she leaned timidly into his side and when he didn’t show any discomfort at her proximity, Maka soaked up the warmth of his body for a few hours while they watched TV. 

Since she was an insomniac, she was still wide awake when Soul began trying to fight off sleep. He began to slump, his cheek brushing the top of her head as he nodded off. Smiling, she told him to turn in and left him alone to go to her room while he snuggled in on his pallet of blankets on the floor. 

It was nice to have him with her.

…

At about three, Maka nodded off to sleep. 

The events of the past few days and nights finally caught up with her and she slept like the dead… for about an hour… Nightmares plagued her—nightmares of Ragnarok’s gigantic shaft tearing into her, his hot seed flooding into her and then gushing down her thighs, of the endless awful sex. Then, abruptly, the nightmares changed. She felt her belly go bloated and fat with child, so heavy on her tiny frame that she felt as if she was going to break in half. The child finally tore out of her stomach like a monster—ripping her apart, little hands with little ragged fingernails beginning to claw at the lining of her womb and working their way through—the pain was excruciating and she smelled her own coppery blood.

She screamed!

Maka jolted up in her bed, alone and dressed and panting. Her entire body was slicked with fear-sweat and she couldn’t get in a deep enough breath to sustain her jolting frame. Desperately, she sobbed into her hands and pressed her elbows into her stomach. Why? Why was this happening to her? What had she done to deserve any of this? 

Suddenly, the bedroom door blew open and Maka screamed again. What if it was Yuca and her cronies?! What if it was Ragnarok, back from the dead to fuck her with his tombstone?! The light blazed on, blindingly, and she blinked blearily at the ghost standing in the threshold. 

After a moment, Soul came into focus.

He did still look like a ghost, though, like someone risen to life from an earlier era. With his silvery tresses tousled from sleep, deep scarlet eyes fringed with snowy lashes, filed-sharp teeth, beautiful aristocratic face, scarred yet beautiful hands, and cotton pajamas the same white as his skin, he was not only handsome but incredibly haunting.

“Maka,” he murmured and lowered his hand from the light switch. “Are you alright?”

Panting, she reached out for him desperately with both arms. He hesitated a moment and then came to her, wrapping both arms tightly around her thin body. She clutched him and sobbed into his damaged chest. Soul stroked her mussed hair and finally sat down on the edge of the bed because she was pulling him so insistently. Maka crawled into his lap, pressing as close as she could. Suddenly, she realized she had stopped crying and there was a strange and beautiful sound filling her head. What was that? She could feel a thrumming in Soul’s chest and throat. Was he… humming?

“Soul,” she whispered.

The sound stopped and he murmured, “You were dreaming about what happened, weren’t you?”

She nodded into him. 

“That goes away after a while,” he told her gently and rubbed her back.

“That sound… was that you?”

“Yes,” he breathed.

“Please, keep doing it.”

“I shouldn’t be here with you. Your mother…”

“She’s not here. Please stay, Soul.”

He rested his cheek on the top of her head and breathed deeply. Then, the sound started again and Maka’s eyes slid closed of their own accord. It was such a strange sound, rising and falling in a crescendo. It was lovely, but she couldn’t describe it in words. She was amazed that she fell asleep again, but somehow she did. When the nightmares woke her again, screaming, Soul was like a white silk ghost beside her in the bed. He just held her and hummed all night. 

Maka’s mind drifted back to what Yuca had said about the beautiful albino child of the Evans’ who had been hurt in an accident, the pianist son that hadn’t been on the website when Maka searched them. She also recalled Soul telling her that he used to play the piano and now he was humming such beautiful strange music. Could it be…? But she didn’t ask him. She only slept in his arms and screamed and cried when the nightmares returned. 

And thus the insomniac slept in the arms of a slave.

X X X

(1) I just had to share that I thought this was really ironic to make “Free” a slave.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	30. First Convergence of All Involved

I find it absolutely hilarious that everyone hates Kami so much more than Yuca. 

May I remind to all of one teeny tiny (gigantic!) fact? 

Yuca is the MAIN VILLAIN! 

Kami is just a SIDE INCONVENIANCE!

Yuca let Ragnarok rape Maka, Yuca started ALL of this. Yuca’s also insane, but that hardly matters because we’re all at least a little insane. She kidnapped Chrona and is holding him for ransom so she can steal Maka’s kid (if she’s pregnant…). And I’m sure she’ll do other evil things in the future. So, rearrange your hatred, everyone!

X X X

When Maka woke up, Soul was lying beside her in her bed. His handsome face was smooth with sleep and he was still cradling Maka against his chest gingerly. She suddenly just wanted to hunker down deeper in the covers, nestle against him, and waste away the day. 

Then, she became aware of her cell phone ringing on the nightstand and reached for it irritably. Soul stirred beside her but only shifted onto his side and cradled her even closer to himself. Maka enjoyed this new embrace until her phone stopped ringing. Then, she finally grasped the infernal interrupting device. 

For a moment, she stared at the phone deliriously. The number flashing on the screen beneath the words ‘Missed Call’ was labeled neatly ‘Aunt Yuca’ with a cheerful smiling face. That woman! When had she gotten inside the house to put her number into Maka’s phone?! (1) Maka quickly went through her phone in search of new contacts or anything else strange, but nothing seemed out of place. The cute purple kitten was still her screensaver and all her text messages looked unread. Yuca hadn’t left a message, either. Had Yuca only put her own number into Maka’s phone? But that didn’t seem like Yuca. It seemed too simple, too easy, and all too tricky. 

Why had she called in the first place?

For a moment, Maka debated calling Yuca back and demanding to know what it was she wanted, but her finger hesitated on the button. She glanced at Soul’s peaceful still-sleeping face, breathing easily and deeply, with that band of white gauze around his throat. What if Yuca wanted Soul instead of Chrona? No, she wouldn’t let that happen. So, Maka turned off her phone, shoved it into her nightstand drawer with the hideous slave paperwork, and slammed it shut. 

No one was going to take Soul away from her—not her mother, not Yuca, no one.

Silently, Maka nestled against Soul’s side and ran her hand down his chest. She could feel the ridge of the scar bisecting his chest beneath the thin material of his pajama top. Yesterday, Dr Stein had removed the stitches from his skin while they were all gathered at the abandoned Denbigh Asylum so the flesh was smooth beneath her palm. Gently, she fingered the bites that were exposed on his arms and throat, ghosted her touch over the planes of his handsome face, threaded her fingers through his silvery hair, and explored every ridge and scar on his beautiful-ugly hands. 

“Soul,” she whispered.

In his sleep, he stirred faintly and whispered, “Wes… will you play the violin for me? Please?”

“Soul,” Maka repeated.

“Please, I had a bad dream… Wes…” His face was pinched with sorrow yet he somehow looked happy. What was he dreaming about? 

Suddenly, something occurred to Maka when she had searched about the strange mark on Soul’s back. The cursive E and musical notes inked into his pale flesh—the mark of the Evans family. Wasn’t Wes one of the Evans? The sick violinist? And Soul was dreaming about him by name? And Yuca said the Evans used to have another albino child, a pianist who was hurt in an accident. Soul was an albino, used to play the piano, and said his family had gotten rid of him because his hands were hurt in an accident. Yuca even said the son’s name was Soul. That was too much to just be a coincidence, especially since Soul was such a strange name to begin with.

“Wes,” Soul choked out and his fingers tightened in the sheets. Suddenly, he bit his lower lip and a single tear slid down his pale face like a jewel hanging on his silvery lashes.   
Why was he crying? 

Tenderly, Maka woke Soul from his dream or nightmare. His red eyes met her green ones, swept the room nervously as if he couldn’t remember where he was, and then he sat up in bed beside her. He lifted his ugly-beautiful broken hands to his face, felt the moisture there, and quickly wiped the tears away. 

“Maka,” he murmured. “Is something wrong?”

What could she say? Did she ask him about his family? Ask him if his name was Soul Evans? She wanted to, so badly, but she was reminded of the tears rolling down his sleeping face. She didn’t want to cause him any pain by probing in his old wounds. No, she couldn’t ask him.

“Soul, what were you dreaming about?”

His eyes darted away and he twisted the blankets in his hands. “Nothing.”

“Soul, please, tell me the truth.”

“I don’t want to,” he murmured and kept his face turned away so she couldn’t make out his expression. His silver-white hair shadowed his blood-colored eyes, traced shadowy lines on his face, and made him look like a ghost again. He was so haunted, so broken. “My dreams are…”

“Nightmares?” she offered.

He shook his head. “They’re the last thing I have left and I don’t want to…”

“You still love your family?” She couldn’t keep the shock from entering her voice.

Soul’s red eyes snapped to her face, wide, and then slid closed as if to bar sadness inside. “What did you hear? What did I say?”

“You asked Wes to play the violin for you because you had a bad dream,” Maka whispered. “That was all.”

Soul ran a shaking hand through his silver hair and whispered, “The way you said that… you know something, don’t you?”

“I think I can guess,” Maka whispered. “Are you… Soul Evans?”

He knotted his hands in the sheets. “How did you find out, Maka?”

“I saw… the tattoo on your back and learned it was the mark of the Evans Family. And when Yuca learned your name was Soul she said something about the Evans having a son named Soul who played the piano and was hurt in an accident.” Maka glanced at his face, but his expression was unreadable. “And when you said Wes’s name now in your dreams. It’s too much to be just a coincidence.”

Soul nodded slowly and put his hand over his shoulder blade where the tattoo was. “Wes did it for me,” he whispered. “When we learned that our parents were just going to throw me away because I couldn’t play anymore. He didn’t want me to forget him or that I had at least one person in this world that cared about me.”

“But if it was an accident…” 

Soul shook his head.

Maka’s heart suddenly fluttered in her chest like a bird that had forgotten how to fly and was plummeting. “Soul?”

“It wasn’t just an accident. My father… and my mother…” He sucked in a deep shuddering breath. “It’s hard to play piano,” he said finally and that was all he said. 

“Soul, please, what happened?” As much as Maka knew it was hurting him, she was dying to know what had happened to him. She touched his hands where they were fisted in the blankets, but he pulled away and tightened his damaged fingers into fists. 

“I can’t.”

“Please, Soul.”

“I should make breakfast.”

“Please, Soul.”

“Maka, I can’t. It hurts…”

“Soul,” she whispered.

Silently, he shook his head, lowered his hand from his shoulder, wrung his damaged fingers, and bit his lower lip. His eyes were glassy and full of pain. Whatever had happened had hurt him terribly, so much that the mere thought of it hurt him to the core. He pulled back the covers, got out of her bed, and left the room. Maka wanted to call out to him, beg him to tell her, but she couldn’t. A path of tears littered the floor, a wet trail of pain, and she couldn’t bear to call him back.

“I’m sorry, Soul,” Maka whispered to the empty space of her bedroom. “For everything…”

…

Spirit arrived to pick Maka and Soul up at lunch time and together they met with everyone at the diner down the street. Lord Death and Death the Kid were already there with Liz and Patty in tow and were already seated, clustered close together, when the others arrived. Mari Mjolnir and Dr Franken Stein arrived third, paired together nicely, but their faces were both concerned. Then, they all waited for Tsubaki Nakatsukasa and BlackStar and Kami Albarn. Despite BlackStar, Tsubaki arrived next and Kami was the last to arrive. She looked like she hadn’t slept. The eleven of them seated, squishing in, at a large round table and everyone’s personal bubbles were quickly popped. 

Kami looked like she was going to throw up seeing slaves sitting at the table with her, but she wisely kept her mouth shut after last night’s outburst. 

Maka sent her mother a glare and touched Soul’s leg under the table. Kid seemed to sense her hostility towards slaves and kept his slave-sisters close on either side of him. Tsubaki showed BlackStar the remote and whispered something to him, maybe a threat but more likely a bribe.

The adults stuck their heads together for a moment, whispering.

While the adults had their secret gathering, Maka took that moment to check on her friends. Kid’s face was still bandaged and sore by the stress in his golden eyes. Liz’s shoulder was thickly wrapped with gauze, pressed in a sling against her abdomen, and she was wearing a jacket over her shoulders instead of having her arms through it. Tsubaki was moving slowly and painfully, her entire torso was wrapped in bandages that made her t-shirt look lumpy. BlackStar and Patty were the only ones unharmed. 

Soul’s throat was still wrapped in gauze from his burning collar and he seemed to still be aching at least slightly from the slash bisecting his chest, but that wound had been so horrible and deep that Maka didn’t expect it would ever not hurt at least a little bit. Most of the bites on his body had healed over save one at the junction of his neck and shoulder that kept breaking open. Soon, he would stop looking so much like a brutalized slave and more like a healing human being.

“Are you guys all okay?” Maka asked and squeezed Soul’s fingers. She felt the broken-healed bones beneath the flesh and ran her thumb over a thick scar on his knuckles. His hands were so battered and rough that she found it hard to believe he was really Soul Evans or even that he used to play piano.

But Soul pulled away, keeping his face turned down. 

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Tsubaki said. “Right Liz? Right Kid?”

“I’m so sorry you were hurt. It was all because of me,” Maka mumbled.

“Actually, Maka—ouch,” Kid began and then yelped. He fingered the side of his face. “Tsubaki, if you would.”

“Lord Death told us everything, you remember because we told you everything we knew about what was going on,” Tsubaki explained.

Maka nodded. 

“He gave us a choice then, whether or not we wanted to stay involved. And we all decided that we were going to help you no matter what the cost,” Tsubaki explained. “It’s not your fault, Maka. It’s no one’s fault we were hurt.”

“Expect maybe Yuca’s,” Liz snorted and sipped her drink.

Patty giggled.

“Yes,” Tsubaki relented. “I suppose it could be Yuca’s fault.”

Together, the seven of them shared a small laugh and Maka knew then that it was all going to be okay. At least between them and she realized then that these people were her friends now. The thought made her almost dizzy with happiness. She could replace Ragnarok in her heart with these wonderful people who would never hurt her and who didn’t abuse their slaves. Yes, everything was going to be okay. She slid her hands down over her flat abdomen. Please, let everything be okay.

Finally, the adults sat down. 

Lord Death called this… whatever this was… to order. “Okay,” he began. “There’s a lot to be concerned with right now but I think our most pressing matter is Ragnarok Gorgon. (2) As we are all aware now, he’s dead and Yuca or one of her cronies killed him.”

Maka’s blood went cold. Ragnarok… he was dead! Why couldn’t they just let him go? Bury him and all the hell he had created in her?

Kid nodded. “Yes, Patty—err—led us to him.”

Lord Death nodded and turned to Stein. “As expected, the police are investigating his murder and the rest of this insanity going on. Matters have been complicated just a touch by you sneaky children,” Lord Death slid his eyes to his son and friends. “But we might have been stuck there forever without you.”

Patty giggled. “Trapped in traps!”

“Yes, Yuca’s one clever bitch,” Stein said and lit up.

“Watch your language,” Mari chided him. “There are children present.”

“Come on, they’ve heard worse.”

“That’s not the point!”

“Stein, Mari,” Lord Death interrupted. “None of those things are the point right now.” He took a deep breath. “This is hard to say, but Ragnarok was shot and Kid… I know you armed everyone with guns when you arrived. Is it possible that one of you might have shot him? We need to know this. It’s important.”

“No, Father,” Kid said.

“He was dead when we arrived, Lord Death, honest,” Liz said.

Tsubaki and BlackStar nodded. 

Patty started giggling, but no one paid her any mind. 

All Lord Death asked was, “Liz, what about Patty?”

“We didn’t even give her a weapon,” Liz said. 

“Son?” 

Kid nodded in agreement. “She wasn’t armed.”

“And Yuca was the one who set the traps for us?” Lord Death asked.

It was Maka’s turn to answer. “Yes. When Soul arrived to save me and she found us, she deduced that the rest of you were coming to help too. So she locked us up and I guess she set the traps to stop you from following her quickly,” she explained.

“Makes sense,” Spirit said and sat back. “Sounds like Yuca.”

Lord Death wasn’t so easily convinced. He must have seen something in Maka’s flashing expression and the way Soul tensed up under his scrutiny. “Maka, are you sure that’s all that happened? What did Soul save you from?” 

“From Yuca,” Maka said. So far as she saw it, there was no need to tell them what Ragnarok had done. He was already dead and that was punishment enough. Yuca had blown his brains out and there was no way anyone would ever find out that Soul had bashed him in the skull with a lead pipe while he was busy raping her.

“But Ragnarok was found naked and you were naked, too, Maka,” Lord Death continued.

“When Yuca attached us at Kid’s, I was in the shower. She kidnapped me naked,” Maka explained and in a way it was the complete truth. 

Spirit leaned forward and looked at his close friend. “Lord Death, what are you trying to say? Could something else have happened to my Maka?”

Lord Death rubbed his face with his long-fingered hands. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I was just checking. Something didn’t add up right, but if Yuca took Maka right out of the shower, that could explain why she was naked. Ragnarok’s nudity, on the other hand, is rather unexplainable. It seems he was just crazy.”

Patty giggled and shrieked, “Naked!” Then, she grabbed her t-shirt and ripped it off over her head. 

“Patty, no!” Liz shouted. She and Tsubaki quickly jumped on the younger girl, BlackStar put both arms around Patty’s squirming and giggling frame, and they yanked the shirt back over her head. “Sorry about that,” Liz said to Lord Death and the others.

“Quite alright,” Lord Death said.

“Does she… do that often?” Spirit asked.

“She does crazy things often enough, but I don’t think she’s ever stripped before,” Liz said thoughtfully. “You’re special, I guess.”

“Fantastic,” Kami muttered under her breath. “A slave that strips in public.”

Mari and Stein, sitting on either side of her, slipped her unhappy glares. Spirit cast his eyes heavenward, wondering why hadn’t ever noticed Kami’s dark hatred—probably because they had never had any slaves or spent much time around them before. Kid, Tsubaki, and Liz also sent Yuca’s twin a cold look, but Kami didn’t care. Under the table, Maka gripped Soul’s hand and he actually allowed her to hold his fingers tightly in her own. 

“Is there anything else we need to discuss, Lord Death?” Maka asked. She was suddenly eager to leave this gathering. That Lord Death had come so close to putting his finger on what Ragnarok had done to her made her incredibly uncomfortable. She wanted to run and hide.

“Not really. Shall we eat or is everyone good?”

Stein stood up. “I need to get back to the hospital. This was my lunch break.”

“I understand, Stein. Thanks for coming,” Lord Death said.

Stein nodded, put out his cigarette, and left. 

Kami stood up seconds later, clutching her severed wrist to her chest. “I wish to leave as well, Spirit. I don’t want to spend any more time in the company of…” she cast her eyes over Liz, Patty, BlackStar, and Soul disdainfully. 

“Then go!” Maka hissed at her mother. 

Spirit leaned over and kissed Maka’s forehead. “I’ll take her home, Maka. You can stay here. I’ll come back to pick you up.”

“That’s okay, Papa,” Maka said.”I’m really not hungry. I’d like to leave too.”

Tsubaki stood from the table. “I’d like to talk to you, Maka. Why don’t we walk to the park down the street? BlackStar and Soul can play some basketball while we chat.”

“I don’t know, Tsubaki. I’m a little sad about Ragnarok—”

Spirit pushed her gently. “Go on, Maka. It’ll do you some good and I bet Soul will have fun.” He nudged Soul gingerly. “How long has it been since you just had some fun, Soul?”

Soul smiled faintly. “A while.”

And after the pain in his face this morning and the path of tears he had left in his wake after talking a small bit about his family, Maka couldn’t deny him this one little thing. So, she smiled at Tsubaki, tucked some ash-blonde hair behind her ear, and nodded. “Okay, sound’s great Tsubaki. Let’s get walking,” she said with as much cheer as she could muster. 

Tsubaki smiled and called BlackStar down off his chair where he was hooting and hollering eagerly while a stunned Lord Death looked on. Kid and Liz, being used to the antics of Patty, just opened up menus and began looking over lunch. (They were going to stay behind and have lunch with Lord Death.) For once, Tsubaki didn’t have to threaten BlackStar with the remote and he came along cheerfully. Together, the four of them walked out into the buttery warm afternoon, watching their deep shadows skip ahead on the sidewalk like silk. While they walked, Tsubaki and Maka chatted amicably about everything and anything, but Maka sensed in her suddenly-cold heart that this wasn’t what Tsubaki was after.

So what did Tsubaki really want to talk to Maka about?

X X X

(1) For those of you that might have forgotten, and it was a long time ago, Kuro snuck into Maka’s house and took something. He took Maka’s cell phone number, but he also put in Yuca’s. But, how does that help them destroy Soul? And why do they need to destroy Soul in the first place? Hmm?

(2) Yeah, yeah, sucktastic last name, but I was going along with Medusa since she kind of gave birth to Ragnarok for a lack of a better word.

Remember now, YUCA is the VILLAIN! 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	31. Conversations With and About Maka

Short and muddling chapter, but I have a treat (at least I think it’s a treat although everyone probably just wants fluff. Trust me, by the time you get any real fluff, you’ll be practically begging for it. Reread what I already gave you.) prepared for the next chapter so deal with it! Things must be worked through…

It’s very hilarious to see how everyone defends why they hate Kami more than Yuca. 

Personally, I only hated Ragnarok, but that’s just because his name is so obnoxious to type. (I hate BlackStar, too, in that case because I always want to put a space between the two words and my computer always squawks at me!)

X X X

Tsubaki produced a flat basketball and a hand-pump from her large backpack-purse, tossed both to BlackStar and giggled faintly as he scrambled to catch them, and then towed Maka over to a park bench. Maka tried to protest as BlackStar hastily pumped up the ball and then lobbed it at Soul. Soul looked incredibly stunned, uncertain, and glanced at Maka. She was going to race to his rescue as BlackStar knocked the ball from his hands, but Tsubaki pulled her away.

“It’s okay, Maka. Just let them be,” Tsubaki said and patted the space beside her on the bench. “Sit. We need to talk.”

“About what?” Maka asked and sat down beside her new friend. 

For a moment, Tsubaki watched BlackStar kicking Soul’s butt. It had been thirty seconds and BlackStar was already up three baskets. Suddenly, Soul’s face steeled with determination and he took a new stance. Within seconds, he scored two himself and a wide smile broke out across his face. 

“They look so happy, don’t they?” Tsubaki murmured.

Maka nodded.

“Do you know what BlackStar looked like when I bought him?”

“Probably a lot like Soul looked when I bought him,” Maka mumbled. “All beaten up and dirty.”

But Tsubaki shook her head. “No, BlackStar is a bodyguard slave—highly trained and well-treated.”

“But…”

“There are all sorts of slaves, Maka,” Tsubaki murmured. “Like Kid’s Liz and Patty. They were sex slaves—starved to be beautiful and bruised horribly from roughness. I bet your Soul is a labor slave with those battered hands of his and his muscles.”

“I’m not sure,” Maka said and her brow wrinkled. “Where are you going with this, Tsubaki?”

“You see, when I bought BlackStar, I was the broken one.”

“You?” Maka ventured. 

Tsubaki nodded, dark hair kissing her cheeks.

“What happened?” Maka asked softly.

“I needed someone to protect me,” Tsubaki explained slowly as if each word pained her. “You see, I was… raped by my own brother and I was afraid so I bought BlackStar to protect me from him in case he came after me again and I didn’t tell anyone what had happened. About a week afterwards, Masamune came after me again and BlackStar stopped him. I had to tell my family what he was because Masamune was hurt and they were going to get rid of BlackStar. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Silence stretched between them as they watched the boys play basketball. Soul sunk a basket on BlackStar and grinned from ear to ear. 

“Dude, you have the teeth of a DEMON!” BlackStar shouted and pointed at Soul’s mouth.

Immediately, he closed his lips over his teeth and glanced towards Maka. He looked about to dash over to her and beg to leave when BlackStar swung his arm around Soul’s narrow shoulders and said something with a great laugh. Whatever he said, it did the trick because Soul smiled again and they resumed playing like nothing had happened.

“Why are you telling me this?” Maka asked.

“Because… I can tell something happened to you that you aren’t telling the rest of us.”

“And you think, what?” Maka’s heart began to race. There’s no way Tsubaki could know what Ragnarok did to her, right?

“Maka,” Tsubaki murmured. “There was blood on you when we arrived.”

Maka rolled her small hands into fists. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she whispered.

Tsubaki put her hand on Maka’s shoulder. “You could be pregnant now, Maka. You could have a disease.”

Maka hadn’t thought of that. She slowly turned to Tsubaki, hating the way her vision swam and shivered with tears. “What do I do?”

Tsubaki gently closed Maka into a hug. “Who else knows?” 

“Just Soul,” Maka choked out. “When he came to save me, Ragnarok was raping me and Soul gave me his shirt.”

“Do you want to tell the others?”

Maka shook her head. “N-no.”

“I can help you, but you need to get checked out.” Tsubaki patted Maka’s back comfortingly, if there was a way to soothe such a terrible situation. “Okay?”

“Tsubaki,” Maka whispered. “There’s one more thing… You know Yuca still has Chrona.”

“Yes, what about him?”

“To get him back I have to give Yuca a baby… my baby, the baby she’s expecting because Ragnarok raped me…”

“Oh, dear,” Tsubaki breathed out and hugged Maka again. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you through this.”

Silently, Tsubaki cradled Maka against her chest while the smaller younger girl cried herself out. She watched the two boys playing basketball. Soul was smiling broadly, honestly so that it reached his blood-red eyes, and BlackStar was happy to have someone else to finally play so roughly and crazily with. For about twenty minutes, Maka cried herself out. Then, silently, the two girls sat together watching their two boys play with such happiness. After an hour, Tsubaki decided the game was a tie, deflated the ball, and stowed it back in her bag. Then, she rounded everyone up, waved to Maka, and headed off to the café for her shift with BlackStar. 

“Did you have a nice talk?” Soul asked her. His face was practically glowing with happiness.

Maka nodded and slid her hand into his. “Come on, we should be getting home.”

He smiled and gave her fingers a little squeeze. “Are you alright, Maka?”

She thought a moment and then said, “Yes, I am.”

He smiled and she watched it reach up into his crimson eyes. Soul was so happy and his mirth flooded over into Maka. There was no trace of the sadness that had been in him this morning and for that, Maka was grateful. She didn’t want him to hurt anymore and she was tired of being hurt too.

…

Death the Kid’s mansion home looking like a gingerbread cottage after being at the abandoned Denbigh Asylum. Kid and Liz were sitting on the back patio, sipping sun tea that Kid had made, while Patty charged around the yard like a dog just taken off her lease. In a way, Liz supposed she had been. Maka’s mother sure was fierce and hateful. What a scary woman… Liz would almost rather take on Yuca again than be locked in a room alone with Kami. Hell, she would rather fight Yuca than even sit next to Kami. 

Liz set her drink down and turned to Kid. “I don’t Maka is telling us everything,” she began plainly. She knew she could trust Kid and if she could trust Kid with her darkest secrets, then Maka could trust Kid at least a little too.

“What do you mean, Liz?” Kid croaked.

“Does your face hurt terribly? Should I get you some paper?”

Kid waved her off and gestured for her to continue by eagerly leaning on his elbows and looking into her face with his handsome bronze eyes. He had a strange sort of sign language, but Liz didn’t have too much trouble understanding him. Patty, on the other hand, was the worst Charades player in the history of Charades. 

“I don’t think Maka’s telling the truth about what happened to her at the asylum.” Liz fingered the ends of her hair nervously. Even though she trusted Kid completely, it wasn’t her place to talk about this. This had happened to Maka, not her this time. “I think Ragnarok might have raped her.”

Kid’s eyes widened. “What?” he forced out.

Liz nodded. 

“What makes you think that?”

“I just… I have this bad feeling and then Tsubaki went to talk to her so she must have had it too.”

“What could that mean, Liz?”

Liz rolled her shoulders. “Not all men are gentlemen,” she said and lifted her eyes to Kid’s. 

He smiled softly at her and then winced as pain lanced through his face. Liz giggled slightly so he must have made an interesting expression. He stretched his hands out across the table and Liz touched the backs of his knuckles, but didn’t take his hand. Even that small touch was enough for him. “What should I do? Anything?”

Liz shook her head. “No, Maka will tell us if and when she needs to. After all Ragnarok is already dead.”

Kid nodded and darkness flashed across Liz’s pretty face. Did she wish the men who had raped her and Patty were dead?

“Liz?” he whispered.

“Huh?” She looked startled and then ashamed. Had Kid seen her bad thoughts?

“You’re a good person,” was all he said and tried to smile for her again, but winced in pain. “I need my face to heal,” he moaned. “It’s not right when it hurts to smile.”

Liz chuckled at his expense. “Please, Kid, allow me to smile for you.” 

Then, she tipped her head back and laughed as it making up for lost time. Kid’s eyes softened as he watched the older sister laugh like she was making up for lost time and the younger sister roll in the thick grass like a joyful dog. Yes, they had all been through hell, but it made moments like this that much sweeter and more precious.

…

“Wwwhy dooo yooou neeed to gettt riddd of the boyyy anywayyy?” Nero hissed. 

Yuca languidly put her feet up on the worn velvet lounge. Seated beside his mistress, the violet-haired slave Chrona was nervously pulling at his fingers. He was a real sweetie and Yuca had taken a liking to him, petting him absently while she considered her answer.

“Well, it’s not Soul, per say, that I have to get rid of. When it was supposed to be that bodyguard-slave Free, I needed to destroy him because he was going to get in the way of my plan,” Yuca said and scratched a phantom itch where her hand used to be.

“Then why are we doing this?” Kuro asked. “If Soul isn’t a threat to you?”

“Because, Nero, you saw how happy my niece was with him. No one should be allowed to be that happy,” Yuca said finally. “I don’t want her to have everything she wants. My sister’s child doesn’t deserve that much happiness. She needs a little more suffering in her life. She needs to suffer as I have suffered…”

“But do you really think the Evans will call her? After all, they were the ones that threw Soul away the way they did. What makes you think they’ll want him back?” Kuro asked.

Yuca rolled her shoulders and threaded her fingers through Chrona’s violet hair. “I put my cards on the table, into play. All that’s left to do is wait to see how the others will respond,” she said cheerfully. Then, she cradled her arms around the air and made a rocking motion. “I can’t wait for my child… I wonder what it will be like. I’d like a girl, just like pretty Maka with big green eyes and dark hair. Wouldn’t that be nice? But a boy would be nice, too. Imagine if Ragnarok’s sperm didn’t take and she made my child with Soul Evans. My baby could be a beautiful albino and a musical prodigy like the rest of that fantastic family…” She giggled and kissed the air in her arms.

Nero and Kuro looked away. 

All this for a baby… so an infertile woman could have a baby.

All these lives were being broken apart just so Yuca could have a baby. 

It seemed like such a small stupid thing, but it was everything to Yuca—everything!

‘A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse…’

They supposed more had been lost over sillier things, but still. All this suffering and death just for a baby, over a child.

As if sensing their hesitation, Yuca lifted her green eyes to them and then held out her arms. “Come here, my princes, and let me pleasure you.” Because she looked so lovely and beautiful, they of course came to her and then inside her. 

Chrona silently watched, seated on the worn leather wing-backed chair, unsure of where else to put his nervous eyes. Then, he closed them tightly and wished for Miss Maka to be okay. He was sorry all this was happening to her and because of him and his brutal horrible master. 

Miss Maka was so sweet. She didn’t deserve any of this.

And Yuca had been sterile to begin with. She was never meant to have a child, never meant to raise a family, never meant to… None of this should have been happening to begin with. Yuca should have been dead twice by now—first in the accident Kami had caused that took her fertility, second when Lord Death and the others attacked her. 

None of this was ever meant to happen…

Everyone should already be dead!

Even Kami and therefore Maka, particularly Yuca, and above all Soul.

X X X

Nice to see that I fooled NO ONE with what Tsubaki wanted to talk to Maka about. Am I predictable or are you all just that good?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	32. The Evans Family

This was a fun chapter. I think it’s a treat, but that’s just me. You all probably think some SoMa fluff and moments is a treat, but I find this chapter to be very special. I’m weird, I know… Anyway…

Congrats everybody! This story has FOUR HUNDRED reviews (on Fanfiction)! Wowy, I feel so incredibly loved and special!

X X X

Aurora Evans finished her duet with the lovely white songbird and lowered her silvery flute from her petal-pink lips. For a moment, the songbird twittered on and then fell silent, looking at Aurora curiously as she tilted her head to listen to the stillness of her house. Then, she put her beautiful silver flute into its blue velvet case, admiring the mother-of-pearl insets and silver polished to a heartbreaking shine. Silently, she closed the lid, tied up the box with her silver satin ribbon, and put it in the drawer with all her other dreams.

Aurora went to the window and placed her hand on the cool glass, looking out over the burgeoning garden, the hard-working gardener, and the lovely forest. She had such a beautiful house, a beautiful son, a beautiful husband, yet why did she feel so sad. Maybe it was Wes, his grief and death reaching out to encompass everything around him. Maybe it was the sight of her own pale and beautiful face in the mirrors she passed in her beautiful home. 

Aurora leaned her forehead on the cool glass and let her breath out in a steamy puff, obscuring her view of the beautifully burgeoning garden beyond the glass. It was like a Secret Garden now, hidden by her smoky breath. 

Then, she pulled back and peered past the garden at her own reflection. Was that really her face? When had she started looking so pale? 

Aurora smoothed down her razor-straight milk-white hair against her pearl-white skin, feeling it run over her bare shoulders like watered silk. She smoothed her rose-pink silken gown down over her breasts and belly, feeling her slender perfect body beneath her hands. It had been so long since she felt heavy with child, blessed with child. Only her one son had survived, her Wes, and he was so sick that he practically had one foot in the grave. She drew a small frowning face in the steam on the window left by her breath, gazed at it a moment, and then wiped it sharply away. Finally, she lifted her ruby-red eyes fringed with long milk-white lashes that looked like snow to her reflection on the window pane.

She was an albino, a beautiful milk-pale shade of a woman, and she had passed that lovely gene on to Wes. Her beautiful moon-pale son, her half-dead boy.

Gingerly, Aurora slipped her bare feet across the floor as if walking on glass. She was careful to be silent as she moved through the house lest she disturb either her husband or her son. Wes needed all the rest he could get and Dante was… Dante didn’t like to be disturbed. 

Aurora lingered at the bottom of the grand staircase, looking up while her slender musician’s hand rested on the exquisitely-carved finial. Then, she heard the cry wracking through the house like a physical wound and the tears rushed to her eyes. 

Wes… 

Wes was playing his lovely violin and filling this empty house with sorrowful mournful music again. She climbed the stairs to his room, but the sound only grew fainter. That meant Wes was not in his room though he had been so sick lately that he couldn’t even get out of bed. Where could he be?

“Wes?” she called out and her melodious voice echoed back to her. “Wes, darling, where are you?”

He didn’t answer, but continued to play and Aurora had only to follow the sound of his music to find him. Wes was in the Piano Room, sitting at the red-velvet bench beside the glossy black monstrosity that was the family’s grand parlor piano. The walls were paneled in dark wood with countless windows, now draped with thick red-velvet curtains. The piano gleamed, as glossy and dark as a precious gem in the faint light of the dimmed crystal chandelier overhead.

Wes was sitting at the piano bench, bare feet resting on the cool tile. He was as thin as a skeleton in his favorite dark slacks and blue button-up shirt with his bare feet and thin wrists the color of paper and just as thin. His hair was more silver than Aurora’s milk-white tresses, the color of the silvery metal of her beautiful flute. The rosy violin looked so warm and full of life in his hands, as if it was holding every thread of his lost life or sucking the life straight from his empty veins. 

For a while, Aurora watched her son playing his violin while sitting at the glossy night-black piano in the dimness, but it was such a strange sight that she saw fit to interrupt him. Gently, she touched his skull-like shoulder and Wes continued to play. “Wes,” she whispered.

“Yes, Mother?” His voice was low and hoarse, gravelly from not being used enough and injured from the leukemia eating away at his body.

“Why are you playing in here?” she asked tenderly.

“I like the piano.”

“Sweetheart, you play the violin.”

“My brother plays the piano,” Wes said firmly. 

“Your brother is dead, Wes,” Aurora whispered.

His expression twisted and even so he did not play a single sour note. “He’s not dead.”

“He is dead, sweet Wes.” Aurora petted his silvery hair, looking at her own thin fingers. Why did she feel like a porcelain doll, beautiful but so fragile and old?

“He’s not dead,” Wes insisted. “I remember what everyone did to him…”

“He’s dead, baby.”

For a long moment, Wes stared into his mother’s ruby eyes with his own sick-death-dim farseeing scarlet ones. Then, his eyes rolled up into the back of his head, his violin and bow clattered from his beautiful long-fingered hands, and he collapsed like a folded paper doll into his mother’s arms. Aurora cradled him against her breasts, stroking his face and hair. She was glad his beautiful silvery hair had grown back, as full and thick as it used to be.

“Oh, Wes,” she murmured. “He’s dead, but I’m sure you’ll see him soon.” Then, she bent her face over her dying child’s and cried quietly, watching her tears roll down his cheeks like he was crying too.

“What’s going on?” Dante’s sharp strong booming voice echoed through the Piano Room. “Did Wes pass out again?”

Aurora nodded and cradled her son closer to her chest. Please, don’t take him away from me, she begged anyone who would listen. Just let me hold him.

Dante was as unaware of her prayers as the Gods were. He crossed the room on booming footsteps, crouched, scooped Wes from his wife’s arms, and stood up again before Aurora could even get out a word of protest or clutch her son closer.

Dante Evans was as large and powerful a man as Aurora was small and fair. He had a full head of rich dark chocolate hair and small dark eyes, large hands for playing his loud saxophone and thick powerful arms to dwarf his son and wife in. If Aurora was a porcelain doll from an earlier era and Wes was the death portrait of some beautiful sleeping corpse, then Dante was the Colossus of Rhodes. He was almost the exact opposite of Aurora yet they still had a long and happy marriage. It would be nearly twenty-four years come this fall. 

Silently, Dante carried Wes from the Piano Room and left Aurora behind to gather Wes’s fallen violin. As she had with her own beautiful flute, she hugged the glossy rosewood violin to her chest, cradling it like a small child, and then slipped it into its black-velvet lined-case. She gathered the case against her chest and carried it up to Wes’s hospital-clean bedroom with all his wires and equipment beeping absently because Dante had hooked him up. 

She laid the violin on his cluttered nightstand reverently so it would be there like a close friend when he woke up. For a moment, Aurora stood staring down at her only surviving son. Then, without touching him or kissing his forehead, she left his bedroom and closed the door softly behind herself. 

The beautiful Evans house was silent of everything from music to crying to softly twittering songbirds.

…

Wes opened his eyes to his neat hospital-esque room painted sherbet-orange by the setting sun and the machines all beeping to match his heartbeat around him. Silently, he freed himself and swayed weakly. He hated this, hated how his body had become his worst enemy, hated how his soul was a battleground. His own body was trying to destroy him, to tear him apart at the seams, trying to kill him each and every day. He was at war inside himself. There was no other way to put it.

Wes went into his closet, pushed aside all the clothes that were far too big for his emaciated frame now, and dug into the secret space he had created in the wall. From that dark cavern, he produced the things neither of his parents knew he still had. 

The first was an old family photograph, one that Soul and his mother’s other dead child were still in with them. Aurora was even more beautiful then, glowing with youth and health. She cradled her baby in her arms, smiling with her breasts still full and heavy with milk. Dante was like a dark horseman beside her with one large hand practically dwarfing her small shoulder where he was gripping her. In front of Dante, eight-year-old Wes was standing and he didn’t look too sick then. He didn’t look like he was dying, not yet. Standing in front of their glowing mother was four-year-old Soul, Wes’s charming little brother. He was smiling broader than anyone else in their family and holding Wes’s hand in his own small one. He looked like such a strong hearty child, even as pale and thin-boned as he looked.

The second was a photograph of only himself and his little brother. They were both wearing nice pinstriped suits of black and crimson to accent their eyes and silver-white hair. Like that, they looked like twins of different sizes. Soul was still smiling broadly. He had such a wonderful smile and Wes only looked tired. The leukemia was starting to eat away at him even back then. He was starting to die, but Soul was absorbing all the life he was losing. Or maybe Soul’s life was flowing into Wes. 

Either way, after Soul was taken away, Wes felt even sicker.

Third was a photo of five-year-old Soul sitting at his piano, playing so beautifully with far too much arm-gesturing. When Soul played, he always poured his heart and soul into the music and the piano. That piano had become a part of him, the dark and wonderful powerful part that he poured out with each piece on parchment and with black ink. 

Fourth, Wes had the x-rays of Soul’s shattered hands and the bones looked like a pile of broken twigs. They were burned on the edges, but Wes had pulled them from the fire before they could burn away completely. No one knew that they existed anymore, along with the only remaining photographs of Soul Evans. 

As far as anyone in the Evans Family was concerned, Soul was dead and buried.

As far as any outsiders knew, Soul Evans had never even existed.

As far as anyone knew, none of these things remained.

As far as Wes was concerned, Soul was his.

He would never let Soul go, not a single piece of his precious little brother, not even these insignificant little shards. As far as he was concerned, these were the only pieces of Soul left on the planet. He would never let them be taken away from him and he would never let his parents find out that he had kept these pieces of Soul. Soul was his!

“Soul,” Wes croaked and ran his fingers down the glass of the old bronze frame. “Where are you?”

A cough wracked Wes’s thin chest and he hacked into his hand. When he pulled his hand away, there was blood on his palm and he could taste it on his tongue. Without a care, Wes wiped the blood on his trousers. He knew he was going to die, but he wished he could find his brother and see him one final time—just to say goodbye and to make sure he was as okay as he could be in his new life. 

Oh, yes, Wes knew his parents had sold Soul off as a slave. He had sat up, holding his six-year-old brother with his bandaged-shattered hands well into the night. Then, he had inked the mark of the Evans’ Family into Soul’s shoulder blade with musical ink and needles.

Throwing away Soul was something Wes would never forgive his parents for.

And he would never forgive himself for allowing it to happen either. 

He should have done something—anything!—to save his precious brother, but he hadn’t. He had just let them take Soul away… all because of his broken hands… For such a little thing, Soul had been tossed aside like something used, like garbage. 

“Soul,” Wes whispered again. Then, he slipped the things back into the secret space and put everything back the way it had been. 

Wes returned to his rumpled bed and sat down on the quilted coverlet and reclined, exhausted, against the pillows. Then, he took his treasured violin from its velvet case, cradled it a moment against his chest the same way he had held his Soul, and began to play one of Soul’s favorite piano pieces in homage. 

It was nearly eleven when the phone rang.

“My name is Yuca Kishin. Is this the Evans house?” It was a female voice on the line, low and purring like a seductress, but Wes was beyond seduction. 

“Yes, this is Wes Evans,” he murmured and coughed.

“Ah, Wes,” the female voice purred. “I have some interesting information. Are you aware that your brother, Soul Evans, is still alive?”

Wes’s breath hitched. “What?” he breathed.

“He is. He’s the slave of a terrible young woman named Maka Albarn in Death City.”

“Is she hurting him?” Wes gasped out.

“Oh yes.” Why did she sound so pleased?

“Tell me where to find him. Please,” Wes begged.

The sensual woman laughed joyfully and then Wes was listening to dial tone, lonely dead-silence. Silently, Wes slipped the phone back into its cradle with shaking hands. He knew a little bit now and that was enough for him to start with—Maka Albarn, Death City. This was his chance. Wes could make up for his failure for not saving Soul and he could see his brother again before he died. Things were finally starting to work out for him. Wes leaped from the bed, but his legs buckled beneath him and he crashed to the floor. He tasted blood and death in his mouth and he felt his body dying all around him. The cancer… It was slowly eating him apart like worms in a corpse.

“Soul, please, wait for me as long as you can…”

X X X

I know everyone’s used to everyday updates, but I just don’t have time right now. I have to get my license, apply for college, work at home, work regularly, and all kinds of other crap. So I won’t be updating everyday but you can still count on frequent updates. I love my stories and my writing! But, I won’t be able to update everyday anymore. Every other or so should be manageable. 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	33. Music and Sleep for Soul Evans

Okay, okay, everyone! I get it, I get it. We all hate Kami because she’s a bitch and Yuca’s crazy but she has her priorities. Let it go now. Debate Soul’s family instead…

X X X

It was dark and cool outside the window. Maka lounged on her bed with her laptop in her lap, listening to some music and enjoying the night breeze. After talking with Tsubaki about what had happened to her, the world didn’t seem so bleak. After all, Tsubaki was beautiful and confident. Being raped by her own brother hadn’t slowed her down any and Maka didn’t see why she should let it stop her either. After all, Ragnarok was already dead. It wasn’t as if he was still out prowling the streets looking for another victim or hunting her to finish the job. He was already dead and Maka could let it go. Even though her conscious mind knew that, she kept thinking about her nightmares. 

God, they had been so awful… like she never wanted to sleep again.

There was a light knock on her door and Soul stuck his head in. There was a towel hanging over his head and shoulders and he had unwound the bandages from around his throat, not that it looked much different from the ring of pale whiteness—smooth untouched flesh. His face was soft with exhaustion and he even offered her a small smile of barely-shown pointed teeth. “Maka, I was going to go to bed. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m ok—” 

Maka cut herself off abruptly as the image of her baby ripping out of her stomach tore through her brain in a heart-stopping flash. Soul had already closed the door over partway when she suddenly called out to him. She hated how shrill and desperate her voice sounded and cleared her throat before speaking again.

“Actually, Soul,” she murmured. “Would you like to sleep in here tonight?” She wet her lips anxiously, though she wasn’t sure why she was nervous. “With me? Please?”

Soul’s crimson eyes slid across the hardwood floor to her plush bed, knuckles whitening around the doorframe. Maka was leaning her shoulder against the wall, laptop on her lap and bare legs stretched out the length of the bed, and the window wide open so that the late night breeze stirred her ash-blonde hair around her face and shoulders. She looked rather small and innocent and her question had seemed incredibly honest. She didn’t have any ulterior motives save maybe the same kind of comfort he had given her the night before. He had no idea why she found him such a comfort, but he enjoyed her closeness and gentleness and was willing to allow her this small thing that she so dearly wanted. 

“If you’d like,” he said because he didn’t think it was wise to let her know that he enjoyed being with her. He was a slave and she was his master. It wasn’t right for him to even care about her yet here he was and he couldn’t make himself turn away.

Silently, Soul crossed the bedroom to her bed and Maka pulled her long bare legs aside to make space for him. She was wearing a t-shirt that hung on her and some short cotton shorts, ash-blonde hair damp from a shower and brushing against her cheeks softly, and dirty feet scrubbed clean. She was beautiful and innocent before him.

Soul snarled the damp towel closer around his head and shoulders, suddenly nervous, and lay down on the bed beside her upright form. He could feel the heat coming off her body and his knees just touched her thighs where they bent. Nervous, he hugged himself tightly. Then, he felt light pressure on his head and then a faint brushing sensation. Maka was petting his hair. It felt so nice. Soul’s eyes slid closed and he felt his mouth curve in a smile that he was glad was hidden by the towel. 

“Soul,” Maka whispered and pushed the towel back from his face.

He was caught! He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and willed the happy pinkness to leave his face. Please, whoever was out there, please don’t let her know that he liked this. Everything he had ever enjoyed had been taken away from him so please, don’t… don’t take this away too.

“It’s okay,” she whispered as if sensing his worry. 

He cracked open on crimson eye. “Maka?”

“I was just wondering… do you want to listen to some of your brother’s music?”

Soul sat bolt upright, towel dropping down like a bird striking a window. “W-what?” he whispered.

Maka lowered her eyes. “I can find some of his music online and I wanted to know if you’d like me to play it for you.”

She saw his ugly-beautiful hands fist in the sheets and a tremor seemed to go through his entire body. He scooted closer to her, peering at her laptop screen with eagerness she couldn’t believe, and she felt the heat of his body soaking into her skin. Slowly, as if afraid she would strike him down, he ventured a crooked finger to one of the songs she had displayed on the screen. “This one. Will you play this one for me?” he asked. His voice cracked hopefully. 

“Of course,” Maka said and clicked the song. “I’ll play whatever you want.”

Surprisingly, Soul laid his head down beside her hip, crimson eyes slanted up at the screen even though there was no video to watch. Maka slid her fingers through the cool silver silk of his hair, stroking. Wes’s mournful violin music filled the room and coupled with the cool night air. It was like being in a dream, a sad soft yet somehow wonderful dream. Being an insomniac, Maka wasn’t tired in the least but Soul closed his eyes and sighed with content exhaustion beneath her hand. He was so peaceful in sleep, face smooth and soft and untouched by pain.

Within a few moments of the song he had chosen ending and the next one beginning to play, Soul was deeply asleep. Maka closed the laptop, flipped off the lamp on her nightstand, and did all this as carefully as she could so she wouldn’t wake Soul, but her efforts weren’t needed. 

Once she settled herself back against the headboard, gazing out the window at the cool night beyond, Soul murmured something in his sleep and shifted. He moved his head into her lap as if searching for a pillow, nuzzled deeply into her thighs, wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close, and sighed contentedly.

Maka blushed something fierce and tapped down the small shiver of fear that touched her at his face being so close to her poor violated crotch. Soul was only sleeping and reaching out to her in that quicksilver world. He wasn’t going to hurt her, even if he was awake. So, Maka reclined comfortably against the headboard and slid her fingers back into his silky silver hair. Soul murmured in his sleep and nuzzled even closer to her, hugging her tightly. 

Maka watched his healed lips curve into a faint smile and smiled herself.

Soul was so sweet, so tender, but he hid himself behind his scars and fear. Even so, Maka sensed that no matter what kind of front he put up he was practically desperate for any scrap of kindness he could get from anyone. After all, he used to be part of a real family, part of the Evans Family none the less, and he probably missed the tenderness he had known at a young age compared to the brutality he lived with through these past years. 

And Maka was more than happy to give him that lost gentleness now. 

She stroked his face and hair. She followed the curve of his jaw, traced the shape of his plush lips, ran her fingers over his smooth lids and spidery silver lashes, and caressed the reset broken bridge of his nose. By now, he was almost completely healed. The bruises and shadows were gone from his face, the bites had healed over into fruitlike moons, and the giant gash bisecting his chest was only a jagged scar now though it was still thick and ugly beneath his clothes. The only wounds remaining were the burns on his neck from the collar her mother had put on him. Un-bandaged and clean, Maka saw that they weren’t that bad to begin with. Within a few days, Soul’s body would be flawless save the scars. She blushed and cupped his cheek in her hand. His mouth was still curved faintly, eyes smooth, and expression blissful. She leaned down and inhaled the scent of his skin. He smelled like she did from using the same shampoo and soap, but there was something masculine and completely him in his scent. 

Did he smell a little like blood and sorrow and polish from a piano or was that just her imagination? Either way, she liked it.

Maka put her finger to the corner of his mouth and traced a path across his lower lip. Her mind wandered. What would he taste like if she were to kiss him? Would he taste bitter and hot like Ragnarok had? Or would he be sweet and warm like she read about in books? Maka dipped her head, wanting nothing more than to block out the memories of Ragnarok tearing her apart at the seams, to replace them with the sensations of something she wanted and of something pleasant. 

Soul murmured in his sleep, shifted, and the smile abruptly fell from his face even as he slept.

What was she thinking? Maka pulled quickly away, ashamed of herself, and gazed out the window at the laughing face of the golden moon. It felt as if the moon was laughing specifically at her and it had every reason to. She was acting stupid. Soul might have been an Evans once, but he wasn’t anymore. He wasn’t human anymore. 

Soul was a slave.

…

Spirit had given over the house to Maka after his divorce from Kami and bought a small condo on the outskirts of Death City. Now, with her return, he was putting up Kami in the guest room, not prepared to welcome her anywhere right now—including his room and his bed. She seemed like a completely different woman now. She was vulgar where she never had been before, she lacked any modesty whatsoever though her body was scarred and ugly from Yuca’s torment, and she was hateful and spiteful now. 

“Kami, would you mind explaining to me why you’re so volatile lately?” Spirit asked as he spread a nice dinner of Chinese takeout on the kitchen table.

His ex-wife was relentlessly trying to crush a spider with her shoe in the living room

“Just let it live,” Spirit called. “It’s not bothering anyone.”

She continued banging away at the insect like she had a hammer. Spirit crossed the room and put his hand on her shoulder, pulling her back gently. Even so, she didn’t stop until Spirit yanked the shoe out of her hand.

“Hey, I said to let it live. Come eat dinner.” He hooked his hands under her armpits, dragged her to her feet, and towed her into the kitchen where he sat her down roughly at the table before the spread of Chinese food. “So, tell me why you’ve been so nasty lately.”

She crunched into an eggroll as if taking her frustrations out on the food. “She can’t keep him, Spirit.”

“She is going to keep him. That boy risked his life for our daughter.” Spirit scooped some pork lo mein onto his plate with his fork. “He’s not going to hurt her.”

“She was supposed to buy Free and Free was supposed to die before anything could happen.” Kami’s voice was distant, as if she wasn’t even aware that she was speaking. 

“Kami, I don’t see what you’re so worked up about,” Spirit said with a sigh. “Soul’s a nice kid.”

“Slave,” she hissed out.

Spirit narrowed his eyes, watching her warily. “Kami, what’s your problem?”

Suddenly, she looked him right in the eye and said coldly, “She can’t keep him, Spirit. You know that and I know that.”

“I don’t know that,” Spirit snapped and slammed his fork down on his plate. “Please, explain it to me.”

“She has such a heart in her, Spirit. If we give it too much time, you know she’ll fall in love with him.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Kami. They just won’t ever be able to get married. If Maka loves him enough, she can deal with that.”

“She can’t love him!” Kami screamed at Spirit. “She can’t! He has to go!”

“Kami—”

“He has to go, Spirit! He has to go! She can’t love him! He’s a slave! He has to go! He was supposed to die for her! Die! This was meant to be over quickly! She can’t keep him! She’ll love him! He has to go! He has to go!” She kept screaming, over and over, fisting her remaining hand in her ash-blonde hair. 

Then from her pocket she produced a crumpled piece of paper and slammed it down on the table in front of Spirit. 

He plucked it from her fingers with a sigh and lifted an eggroll to his mouth. What could this possibly be? What was Kami thinking now? What was up with her? And was this a good excuse to be acting that way in the first place? Spirit skimmed the first few lines on the wrinkled paper and the eggroll dropped from his fingers and back onto his plate, bouncing off and rolling across the table to leave a trail of cabbage and bean sprouts. Across from him, Kami just kept screaming and shouting as tears coursed down her pale face. 

…

Peacefully, Maka Albarn waited out the month—waiting for the vampire’s curse to bite, for her monthly friend to arrive, for Aunt Flo to visit, for Mother Nature to call, for her enemy TOM to come knocking, to surf the red sea, to ride the cotton pony, on the rag, etcetera etcetera… She passed most of the time with Soul, staying home in a weird funk. She had never looked forward to her period before. Normally she reserved a kind of dread for it that should only be expressed for natural disasters and death. The rest of the time, she spent with Tsubaki at the café or at Tsubaki’s small apartment. BlackStar and Soul were becoming real close and BlackStar’s wild attitude was starting to rub off on Soul. He came out of his shell a little more each day. Then, the end of the month arrived and Maka’s period didn’t come when it was supposed to, or the day after, or the day after, or the day after.

X X X

Because I’m evil I’m going to point out that when you get stressed, you can skip your period just because. And Maka’s pretty stressed right now so let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet. Haha! It’s a CLIFFHANGER, technically because I can’t decide what I want to do yet… Hehe…

Remember, I don’t have time to update everyday anymore.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	34. Going with Something Neutral?

Alright, I decided what I’m going to do. I’ve decided several aspects actually.

Lots of mixed reviews. Everyone was just as confused as poor Maka.

X X X

With her heart in her throat, Maka called Tsubaki. 

Soul lingered in the threshold of the living room and the kitchen with a tragic paleness plastered across his handsome face. She hadn’t told him that her period hadn’t come, just started panicking instead, so he wanted to help but wasn’t sure exactly what was going on or even where to begin trying to help. 

Maka tried to remember how to breathe while the phone was ringing endlessly. Right—in and out, in out, inhale and exhale, inhale exhale—breathe. Breathe, Albarn! You’re self-sufficient, remember? But she was scared and she didn’t know what to do. She needed help. She couldn’t be self-sufficient all the time and she was ready to admit that she needed help. She needed someone’s help, she needed someone to tell her what to do, someone to help her. She needed Tsubaki’s help.

“Yo!” BlackStar shouted when he picked up. 

In the background, Tsubaki squawked something at him. 

He shouted again, “Sorry, Nakatsukasa residence.” He sounded like a very unhappy robot, voice flat and peevish but still terribly loud. 

Tsubaki shouted something about being quiet at him and probably waved around the remote a little.

“BlackStar, it’s Maka. I need to talk to Tsubaki,” she forced out, choking and hiccupping.

There must have been something in her voice because BlackStar slid his volume down a few notches. “Hold on, I’ll get her.” Then, he set the phone down and Maka heard him talking to Tsubaki though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Maka sniffled and tried to collect herself, but it was a losing battle. She just couldn’t get in a deep enough breath to sustain herself. 

There was some clattering on the other end of the phone and Tsubaki’s smooth voice came on. “Maka? What’s wrong?”

“T-Tsubaki,” Maka choked out. “I-I n-need—”

“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Do you need me to come over?”

Maka nodded even though Tsubaki couldn’t see her and then helplessly broke down.

Tsubaki waited a patient moment, hoping her friend would cry out and calm down so they could talk, but Maka was eons away from calm and collected so Tsubaki called out to her. “Maka, come on. Talk to me, honey. Do you need me to come over? Maka?”

But Maka just couldn’t stop crying.

Finally, Soul crossed the room, slipped the phone from her cold hand, and ventured into the receiver, “Tsubaki? It’s Soul.”

“Oh, Soul.” Tsubaki sounded so relieved. She let her breath out. “What’s going on? Can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered nervously. “She’s been tense the past few days and then she just started crying when she came out of the bathroom.” He glanced at Maka as she folded in on herself like a wet paper doll. “Can you please come here and help her?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m supposed to be at work in two minutes so I’ll have to call off or something. Can you try to calm her down in the meantime, Soul?”

Soul nodded. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“Thanks, Soul.” 

Then, Tsubaki shouted something to BlackStar and hung up. She didn’t give Soul a chance to remind her that he wasn’t a person. He was only a slave, after all, but he had feeling that even if he reminded her she wouldn’t care. She might even disagree with him. That was such a strange thought.

Soul listened to the silence for a moment and then set the phone down. He stood there, looking down at Maka, for a few heartbeats. Then, he glanced out the window at the warm sunny day blossoming outside and reminded himself that he had told Tsubaki he was going to try to calm Maka down. He went to the kitchen, filled a glass with cold water, added a little sugar and lemon, and brought it back to her. He sat down beside her, pressed the glass into her palms, and encouraged her to take a drink. For a moment, she fought him, sobbing desperately. He wiped her face with his fingers, smoothed back her ash-blonde hair, and insisted. Finally, Maka took a drink and sucked in a breath.

“Soul, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?” 

She leaned into him, hugging him tightly. “Soul,” she whispered. “What am I going to do? I know I need to save Chrona, but I don’t want this…”

“I don’t understand, Maka.”

“What if I’m pregnant, Soul? What am I going to do?”

There was a light knock on the door and Tsubaki’s voice rang through. “Maka? Soul?” She opened the front door, peeked in, eyed Soul and Maka closely for signs of anything strange, and then stepped into the house. “I dropped BlackStar off at Kid’s. Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“Maka thinks she’s pregnant,” Soul said plainly. 

In his arms, Maka seized up and began to cry again.

Tsubaki came to sit beside them on the couch, hugging Maka gingerly. “What makes you think that, Maka?”

“My period’s late,” she forced out. 

“Okay,” Tsubaki said calmly. “Do me a favor, Maka. Take a deep breath and I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do.”

As she was told, Maka took several deep breaths and Soul found himself breathing along with her. Tsubaki smiled and patted both their shoulders. “Okay, Maka. Together, we’re going to go to the pharmacy and get you a pregnancy test.”

“But, my period’s already late—”

“Have you always been regular?”

“Well, no, not always…”

“Stress can make you late and you’ve been stressed out, haven’t you?”

Maka nodded, her death-grip on Soul loosening. 

“So, it’s possible you’re not pregnant, Maka. We need to be certain of everything before we start to panic. Okay?” Tsubaki explained and pulled Maka to her feet. “Okay, let’s go. Soul, are you going to come with us?”

Soul shook his head. “I’ll stay here.”

“Soul,” Maka murmured. 

Gently, Tsubaki towed Maka out the door. She knew it was best to just get this over with. It was better to know than to be stuck wondering, trapped in blank apprehension. She gave Soul a grateful smile and closed the door over behind them. Then, Soul put the glass in the sink, straightened up a little, and waited for Maka to come home. Unlike Tsubaki, he lived with the idea that no news was good news. He’d rather not know what lay in store for him or for Maka.

…

Maka felt so ashamed as she and Tsubaki stood in front of the pregnancy tests in the pharmacy. She was only fifteen, almost sixteen, and here she was buying a pregnancy test. She never thought it would ever come to this. She wasn’t that kind of person. She just wanted to curl up and die, to hide like a frightened child, but Tsubaki didn’t seem bothered in the least or maybe she was just trying to lighten the mood by putting on a brave and cheerful face. Maka was grateful that Tsubaki was with her or she might not have had the courage to go through with this. She might have made herself into a Prom-Mom, hiding her child and pregnancy until the very end.

“Well, Maka, which one do you think is the best bet?” Tsubaki asked softly, sensing Maka’s desire to hide. “Should we go with the woman who looks happy she doesn’t have a baby or the woman who is so happily cradling her new child? Or the neutral sunrise-sunset scene?”

“What if someone sees us?” Maka whispered to Tsubaki desperately. “What will I do?”

“Then we hold our heads high,” Tsubaki said and scrutinized the fine print on one of the tests.

“But—”

“Maka, you’re brave and beautiful. Nothing anyone says or thinks will ever change that. Your friends care about you and will stand with you to the end, no matter what. Hell, we even braved a spider-infested abandoned asylum for you. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.” 

Maka giggled despite herself.

Tsubaki put her hand on Maka’s shoulder and smiled at her. “Anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t your friend to start with so fuck them.”

Maka’s green eyes filled with tears. “Tsubaki—”

The older girl cut Maka off and hooked some dark hair behind her ear. “Come on,” she said bravely. “Let’s go with the neutral one. Neutral is always good. That’s how the Swiss have lasted so long.” She grabbed two tests off the rack, pushed them into Maka’s hands, and nudged her towards the checkout. 

The clerk eyed Maka, but Tsubaki gave her a grin even as she bagged up the tests. Then, bravely, she ushered Maka out of the pharmacy and safely back home where Soul was waiting. He smiled and Tsubaki gave his shoulder a squeeze as she followed Maka towards the bathroom. He trailed along behind the girls, wanting to be supportive but not sure exactly how he could help. Nervously, he fiddled with his twisted broken ugly hands.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” Tsubaki asked gently.

Maka shook her head. “No, I can pee by myself, but… after I do, will you both wait with me?”

“Of course,” Tsubaki said with a smile. “We’ll wait right here in the hall. Right Soul?”

Soul nodded and offered a small smile to his master. 

Maka wanted to reach out to him, but she reminded herself of the matter at hand. “Should I do both tests now?”

Tsubaki nodded. “Just to be certain, you should always do more than one.”

Maka’s throat worked desperately and then she ducked into the bathroom.

Soul came to join Tsubaki outside the door. “Is everything going to be okay?” he asked her softly.

Tsubaki leaned on the adjacent wall. “It’s hard to say. We just need to wait right now,” she told Soul. “On the one hand, it will be such a relief to Maka not to be pregnant. She’s so young and Ragnarok raped her. I can’t imagine what that would be like to feel that kind of child growing inside you. On the other, she wants to save Chrona and she needs the baby for that. There’s no easy solution or even an easy answer to hope for. Whatever happens, we’ll have to roll with it.”

Soul nodded and sat down beside Tsubaki’s feet, watching the bathroom door patiently with his blood-colored eyes. 

Maka poked her head around the door after a moment and said, “T-three minutes on the clock please.” She forced her lips to curve for her friends.

Tsubaki smiled and checked her cell phone. “Got you covered.”

…

It was, hands down, the longest three minutes of Maka’s life.

…

Then, she picked both tests off the vanity and nervously peeked at them. Her heart was racing so badly and she felt lightheaded. The first was one line and so was the second. Okay, one line… Maka picked up the nice neutral sunset-sunrise box and looked for the key. What did one line mean? Okay, she could do this. Deep breaths—in and out, in out, inhale and exhale, inhale exhale, just breathe. You can do this, just relax and look at the key.

One line: not pregnant.

Two lines: pregnant.

What was her result again? She didn’t even know what she wanted it to be. She didn’t know what to hope for. If she was pregnant, she could save Chrona, but she’d have to go through nine months of pregnancy with Ragnarok’s rape-child growing inside her. If she wasn’t, then she was safe but she couldn’t save Chrona. What did she do? What did she want? What, what, what?! Maka sucked in more air and looked from the test to the box a few more times as she tried to wrap her head around the results. 

It was one line. She wasn’t pregnant.

Was that even possible? Her period was late but both tests were negative so it had to be true. Tsubaki said stress could make her skip her period but she still wasn’t sure. Oh god, what should she do? What did this all mean? What about Chrona? What about Yuca? What should she do? What could she do? 

She wasn’t sure how to feel. Her head was a maelstrom of confusion.

“Maka, what is it?” Tsubaki asked and her voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

“It’s one line,” Maka breathed out.

“What’s one line?” Soul whispered.

“One line means not pregnant,” Maka breathed. 

“Are you happy, Maka?” Tsubaki asked.

“I… I don’t know…” She turned to face Tsubaki. “Is this really possible?”

Tsubaki nodded. “It was the same with me.”

Maka sucked in a shuddering breath. “But, what about Chrona? How do I help Chrona if I can’t give Yuca a child?” Tears welled up in Maka’s eyes. 

Gently, Tsubaki embraced the smaller girl. “Don’t worry, Maka,” she soothed. “We’ll work something out. We’ll figure it out,” she promised.

Maka sniffled, hugged Tsubaki, and forced back her tears. 

Tsubaki rubbed her back soothingly, calmly, and then she met Soul’s crimson eyes over Maka’s shoulder. He looked sharply away and slithered out of the hall like a misplaced shadow. Tsubaki knew he had felt the worry in her voice as she wondered if her words were a lie because honestly, Tsubaki didn’t see a way to work this out. They had reached a dead end and all around them the labyrinth spiraled out. They were trapped. Tsubaki didn’t see a single path that led to their salvation or to Chrona’s. Honestly, she thought it was over for Chrona and all they could do was turn their backs on him as much as it killed her to even think that. But what could they do…? What could they do?

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	35. Second Convergence of All Involved

It’s the epic return of… *dun dun dun*

ParadiseAvenger’s Recommendation Board!

“Undo” by Marsh of Sleep.

“Blood, Bones, and Bolts” by CrimsonCobwebs.

Both are very awesome! Check them out (over on Fanfiction)!

X X X

At Tsubaki’s urging, Maka called Lord Death and asked him to get everyone together for an emergency meeting. She had to tell them about Chrona, about how Yuca wanted a child in order to get him back, about what Ragnarok had done to her, about how she wasn’t pregnant. She had to come clean about everything. So, once again, everyone involved met at the diner and talked over dinner. Death the Kid was there brilliantly on time even though he had BlackStar in tow while Maka, Soul, and Tsubaki arrived a little late even though they were the ones who had called the meeting. Per usual, Stein was the last to arrive with a cigarette hanging off his lip and a stupid smile on his scarred face. Everyone—all twelve of them—crowded around a large round table, still brushing elbows.

“So, Maka,” Lord Death said after he finished directing everyone’s orders and passed over the stack of menus to the waitress. “What’s this about? Maka? Tsubaki?”

Nervously, Maka folded her small hands on top of the table, tightening her grip on her fingers to hide her shaking. Tsubaki and Soul were on either side of her and provided a great comfort even as she struggled to force out the difficult words. “You know that Yuca took Chrona, right?” she began because that was the easiest place to begin.

“Yes,” Lord Death said. His dark brows drew together in confusion. “I haven’t been able to figure out why she decided to keep Chrona if she left you and Soul for us to rescue. She wants a child, not a slave. What’s her motive?”

Maka wet her lips nervously. “You also know that Ragnarok was found naked. Well…”

Tsubaki patted Maka’s leg under the table and sent her a warm smile of encouragement. She knew it would be easiest to take this burden off of Maka’s shoulders and tell Lord Death herself, but it wasn’t her place. This was Maka’s problem and Maka had to tell everyone about what had happened and why. 

Soul shifted and Maka felt the heat of his body soak into her side. 

This is okay, everything is alright, Maka coached herself. She could do this. She had the support of her friends and these adults were on her side. They wouldn’t blame her for what she had done, for her hesitation. Maka took a deep breath to steady herself and continued.

“Yuca took Chrona with her because she wants a child—my child—and Ragnarok raped me in the attempt to get me pregnant for her,” Maka said firmly and quickly. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid, Albarn, you can handle it. And she did. She could handle this.

Everyone else… yeah, not so much…

For a long moment, the adults all stared at her in stunned silence. Kid only glanced at Liz, a strange expression on his pale face, while Liz met Tsubaki’s eyes and they shared a long look. Maka realized both the older girls had known, maybe sensed a kindred pain inside Maka’s heart. Patty and BlackStar both continued on with what they were doing—drawing and snoring respectively—like nothing had happened. Then, with a shriek, Spirit leaped to his feet so quickly that he knocked over his chair with a crash. Kami’s jaw hit the table and kept going and Mari’s face went chalk-pale. Stein stubbed out his cigarette with some fierce emotion and Lord Death calmly reached across the table to touch Maka’s hand comfortingly. 

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner, Maka?” Lord Death asked finally, breaking the tense silence.

“Well, Ragnarok was already dead and I didn’t know if I was pregnant or not. It didn’t seem to matter among everything else that was going on,” Maka explained.

“Then you’re telling us now because…” Lord Death murmured.

Maka nodded.

Spirit about fainted. He had to put both hands on the table to support himself. “Maka, please, tell me you’re not…”

“You can’t be,” Kami breathed out. Her jaw was bobbing around like it was broken, mouth frozen in shock.

Maka shook her head. “I’m not pregnant, but how are we going to get Chrona back? That’s what matters now.”

Lord Death, Stein, and Mari let out small sighs of relief, but Maka’s parents were far from calm. That was the usual reaction, Maka supposed, when you found out your daughter had been raped by her best friend. Kid and Liz didn’t look very surprised and Maka wondered if Liz had been like Tsubaki and just known what had happened to her. She hadn’t been fooling anyone, she supposed, except the adults and maybe herself just a little. 

The waitress arrived with their food, eyed Spirit’s fallen chair and his panting frame, and skittered quickly away. BlackStar, as if woken by the mere scent of food, and Patty dug into their meals immediately, but no one else was ready to eat.

“Well,” Lord Death began. “Yuca said she wanted a child. Was she specific?”

Maka nodded. “Yeah. It has to be my child.”

“We know how Yuca thinks. She’s certain Maka’s going to cooperate with her—trade this baby for Chrona—so she won’t be waiting here in Death City. She’ll be as far away as possible for the next nine months,” Mari interjected. “So we could safely just tell her the child was Maka’s and she wouldn’t know the difference.” She smiled at Maka comfortingly. “You’ll be okay, Maka. We’ll protect you.”

Lord Death nodded in agreement and turned to Spirit as if to ask a question. When he saw that Spirit was still frozen in a panting state of shock, he narrowed his dark eyes at his friend and snapped, “Sit down, Spirit, and stop breathing like that. Pull yourself together!” He clapped Spirit fiercely on the back and the red-head coughed heavily but stopped his panting. “Now,” Lord Death continued, “where are we going to find a baby to give Yuca?”

“We could give her a slave-baby,” Mari offered to the table and helped Spirit sit gently. His entire body was still trembling with some built-up emotion or maybe he was just afraid Lord Death would clap him on the back again.

“We could,” Lord Death said with a nod, but twisted his mouth after he thought about it a moment though he didn’t voice why he thought it was a bad idea.

“Or we could give her a stillborn from the hospital. Those don’t happen very much anymore, but with Maka being so small and young, there would be plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong in her pregnancy,” Stein offered. He took a pack from his coat pocket, tapped out a smoke, and lit up.

Maka suddenly felt a little nauseous and it must have shown on her face because Tsubaki rubbed her back comfortingly.

“That won’t work. We need to exchange the baby for Chrona,” Lord Death said and shook his head. “If the baby is dead, there’s no way Yuca will give us Chrona. She’ll just demand Maka try again and we’ll be right back where we started.”

Stein wrinkled his face and took a long drag on his cigarette, thinking.

“What about if we just forget about this Chrona?” Kami asked suddenly. Her voice was still bitter, but not hateful as it had been the last time she spoke of slaves. Spirit must have had a talk with her or else something had changed inside her head and heart. “Is it right to sacrifice an innocent baby to my sister just for a slave?”

“Chrona is important to me, Mom,” Maka explained flatly. “And he’s suffered enough at Ragnarok’s hands. I want to help him. I’m not going to just abandon him.”

Kami sighed and cut her green eyes to Soul sharply. “I can get you a baby, Maka, in exchange for your… little friend Chrona, but you have to do something for me.”

“What?” Maka asked. 

“Get rid of him.” Kami jabbed her finger at Soul.

Soul tensed sharply beside Maka and she put her hand on his thigh under the table, squeezing gently. Maka narrowed her eyes. “I’m not getting rid of Soul, Mom. He’s important to me, too.”

Spirit pinched the bridge of his nose and looked quickly away when Kami stabbed into him with her green eyes. “Kami, I think we should give him a chance to explain himself. There might be more to this than meets the eye…” he trailed off when all eyes turned to him curiously.

“What more could there possibly be?! I showed you the wanted poster!” From her pocket, Kami yanked out the crumpled sheet of paper and threw it down on the table fiercely among the plates of food and drinks.

At the same moment, everyone repeated. “Wanted poster?!”

Soul’s blood froze in his veins and all eyes turned to him sharply.

…

Yuca reclined on the worn velvet lounge and beckoned Chrona into her arms. She had dressed the twig-thin boy in fresh skin-tight jeans, a warm flannel shirt, and heavy fleece-lined hoodie because he was always shivering. So beautiful and pale but healed to perfection since he had been safely out of Ragnarok’s grasp, the boy came to her and lay in her arms. She smoothed his face against her breasts and kissed the top of his soft violet hair. With her fingers, she combed the tangles of sleep from his hair. 

“Chrona?”

“Yes,” he breathed. 

“Will you stay with me?”

“Yes.” 

“Forever?”

“Yes.”

“What about Maka?”

“Maka’s so sweet,” Chrona murmured.

“She’ll make me the best child, won’t she?”

“Oh yes.”

“What if she wants to keep it?”

“I’ll convince her what a wonderful mother you’ll be.”

“What if she doesn’t want to trade her baby for you?” Yuca asked.

“But she will.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“She will.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“She will.”

Yuca sighed unhappily. Despite everything, Chrona had unyielding faith in Maka. No matter what Yuca did or said, Chrona always said that Maka would come for him and save him. Yuca was beginning to think there was nothing she could do to make Chrona doubt Maka and she was right. Maka was the first person to ever care for Chrona and they would always have that kind of strange bond of pain-and-kindness between them. Ragnarok destroyed Chrona and Maka tried to save him. Chrona would always love Maka for that—always.

X X X

Short chapter, but I wanted to torment everyone because I’m evil that way. 

And everyone, give it up, there will not be a MakaXSoul lemon for a very very very very VERY long long long long LONG time. Anyone who’s familiar with my writing knows when to expect it and not a minute or chapter before. So there!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	36. The Wanted Poster

I feel so loved!

X X X

With shaking hands, Maka picked up the piece of paper from the table and held it with the tips of her fingers as if it was a snake just about to strike. Her mother had to be lying. Soul was such a sweet hurt person—he would never have… But, sure enough, there was a sketchy image of Soul’s face plastered across it with the ugly words “Wanted” like a black bruise at the bottom beneath the name “Eater.” Maka squinted at the fine print beneath “Wanted,” eyes rolling over the trademark “Dead or Alive” and onto the description of why. It said simply “a slave wanted for heinous crimes, dead or alive, no reward.” The fact that there was no reward was probably why he had never been turned in. Who wanted to lose a slave they had bought when they weren’t going to get anything back for it? 

Kid was the first to find his voice, croaking out around his damaged face. “Soul, why are you wanted?”

“I…” he choked, crimson eyes darting to Maka’s bloodless face. “I… can… I can explain…”

“Please do,” Spirit said gently. “I’m not quite ready to believe this. I didn’t even know they had wanted posters for slaves anymore.”

“It’s old,” Kami relented and crossed her arms over her chest. “I printed it off the internet, but it stopped being posted at least five years ago. They’ve forgotten all about you, but I worry about just who my daughter has living with her. I searched your name.” She sneered at Soul, as if he was some kind of deviant that had been in hiding beneath the title of slave, right under her precious daughter’s nose and seeping his claws into her heart like a slow poison.

Lord Death slid her a glare. “Let’s be reasonable, Kami. Soul has been through a lot.” He turned back to the nervous slave. “Soul, please, go ahead and explain.”

“If you can,” Kami hissed.

Spirit glared at his ex-wife.

Smartly, Kami said back, crossed her arms over her chest, and watched Soul closely. Her jade eyes were like daggers going into him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Soul whispered and worked his twisted finger together. “I had no choice.”

“We understand,” Lord Death said patiently. “Go ahead and explain.”

“W-wanted,” Maka croaked. “H-heinous crimes…”

Lord Death glanced at her and saw the pale shock in her face, her eyes frozen on the wanted poster and her mouth hanging open. He carefully grasped the top of the aged poster. “Maka, why don’t you give that to me?” he asked gently.

Her fingers went slack and she allowed him to pull it from her grasp. Stunned, she turned to Soul and he didn’t like the strangeness in her green eyes. It was as if she was looking at a stranger, as if she wasn’t prepared to trust him anymore. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself either anymore. Every time he thought that bad things were behind him, something else came to light—each older and darker then the last. He found himself wondering when they would find out about his family, about why he had become a slave, and fearing that day from the bottom of his heart. What would they have to say then…? 

Soul wet his lips and forced those thoughts away. “I was… being tortured…” he choked out.

“Go ahead, Soul,” Lord Death encouraged. He was calm, he was cool and collected, he was neutral—maybe he had a little sunset-sunrise Swiss in him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Soul insisted and turned his crimson eyes pleadingly to Maka. He reached out to her desperately and she took his hand as if in habit. She was still in a mild state of shock, green eyes distant and unfocused like she didn’t even see him there. It was as if she was still staring at that wanted poster. He squeezed her fingers anxiously. “Please, believe me…”

“No one is judging you, Soul,” Kid murmured, echoing his father’s calm dignity. “Just tell us what happened.”

He lifted his red eyes to Kid’s golden ones, saw calm patience there as well as in Lord Death’s, and took a deep breath to calm himself as well. “It was my first master who made me do it,” he began slowly and cautiously. “He locked me in this room where he could control everything about it—the temperature, the lights, the amount of fresh air coming in, everything—and there were cameras all over so he could watch me while he tortured me. He left me in there for a week with the room alternating between freezing and scalding and—” Soul choked, desperately looking from Maka to Lord Death to Kid.

Kami crossed her arms over her chest, watching him closely. Spirit leaned his chin on his hands and Stein stubbed out his cigarette again, giving this his full attention. Mari squeezed her hands together tightly, thinking of what Soul had been like when he first came into her thrift shop with Maka. He looked small and frail and nervous and he was looking like that again now. Tsubaki patted Soul’s shoulder and that seemed to put some strength into him because he sucked in a deep breath and continued. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “This is just… hard to say.”

“Take your time,” Lord Death said gently.

Soul took in another lungful of air and tightened his grip on Maka’s hand. “He starved me for a week in that room and then at the end of the week, he dropped in the body of a child and told me to eat… if I wanted to survive…”

“Eater,” Maka breathed and her jade eyes met Soul’s red ones. She really saw him then and he felt a surge of relief go through his blood. She had come back and it looked like she believed him. That gave him enough courage to continue.

He nodded slightly, squeezing her hand tightly. “Yeah… that’s where it started. I didn’t want to starve to death…”

“And everyone who tried to eat you after that?”

“It was payback for eating the dead child… except for when you found me in the warehouse when they were pruning out the weak,” he murmured. “And the weak one was me.”

“So, you did eat this child?” Lord Death asked.

Soul went pale and tore his eyes away from Maka. “Please, you have to understand,” he whispered. “She was already dead and I was starving. I resisted for as long as I could, I really did. I tried so hard, as hard as I could. I didn’t want to. I lasted eleven days, but I knew if I didn’t eat I was going to die. My body was eating itself alive from the inside out. My muscles were being broken down and if I couldn’t work, I’d be killed.” His voice broke, rising higher and high in panic and fear. “I had to do it. I had to! I had to do it! I had to!” 

Maka shushed him gently, rubbed his shoulder and stroking his damaged knuckles with her thumb. Tsubaki gently reached around Maka to touch Soul’s shaking back, offering her own comfort. 

“On the poster, it says crimes… It’s plural,” Kid murmured, breaking the silence that had stretched out like a rubber band. “What else happened?” Liz grabbed his knee under the table and dug her fingers into him. He forced back a yelp and eyed her unhappily. 

Soul wet his lips and wished Maka would squeeze his hand but she was only watching him carefully, even having lowered her hand from her shoulder. Tsubaki had retracted her touch as well. “When he finally let me out of that room, he never said anything about the little girl I had eaten. He just had me bury what was left of her body in the fields.”

“Who was she?” Maka whispered.

Soul shook his head, silver-white hair feathering against his pale cheeks. “I never knew.”

A long silence stretched across the table and everyone stared down at the food they no longer felt like eating, save BlackStar and Patty that was.

Even Kami was quietly staring down at her plate. It was clear she had jumped to conclusions about what the ‘heinous crimes’ Soul was wanted for were. She must have felt not only stupid, but brash, and it showed on her pale face. She rubbed where her wrist and hand used to be, severed by Yuca.

“Soul,” Tsubaki urged gently. “We’re your friends. Just tell us what else happened. We need to know, Soul.”

He licked his scarred mouth and Maka glimpsed a flash of his filed-sharp teeth behind his thin pink lips. “Was he the one who…? Did he file your teeth?” she whispered. “Was he the one who made it so you couldn’t smile, Soul?”

Soul’s eyes darted sideways. “No…”

“Who did?”

He shook his head. “I can’t… Please, don’t ask me to tell you… I can’t…”

“Soul—”

Lord Death cut in, effectively halting Maka’s barrage and eyeing Kami to be certain that she wasn’t going to do anything awful. “Let it go, everyone. It doesn’t matter about his teeth or anything else. We only need to know what these heinous crimes are that you’re wanted for.”

Soul nodded, smiling faintly at the wonderful man who was coming to his rescue. “Thank you,” he murmured. 

“But you have to tell us that at least. Anything else you want to tell us is up to you,” Lord Death said gently. 

Mari nodded her agreement and offered him a small smile. “Take your time, honey,” she said kindly.

Soul’s throat worked furiously and he tightened his grip on Maka’s hand. This time, she gave his fingers a small squeeze in return and some of the tension melted from his back and shoulders. He took a breath and continued where he left off. “He used that room on a lot of slaves and whoever didn’t make it, whoever died, he made me bury in the field.”

“So, you buried bodies of slaves?” Stein asked. “That doesn’t seem too bad. Lots of people bury slaves.”

Soul shook his head. “There’s more that I… did… with the bodies…” he whispered. “He wouldn’t feed me… ever! He’d just wait until I was hungry enough and I’d have to eat the dead bodies.” 

“So, you’ve had to eat… horrible things,” Lord Death murmured. 

Soul nodded slowly and then shook his head. “There’s more… I’ve had… a lot of masters,” he murmured and bit his lower lip with his sharp teeth. A drop of blood welled up beneath one sharp tooth.

Maka put one finger to his mouth and whispered, “Don’t bite. You’re hurting yourself.”

He licked the blood away and continued quietly, “After the man with the room, he gave me as a gift to his sister. She was a…” he hesitated again, nervously licking his lips and clutching Maka’s hand. “She was a… porn star. She made me hold the camera for her while she… did things.”

“Were you ever raped?” Stein asked.

Lord Death slid him an unhappy look, but Soul only perked up.

“No! I was never raped.” And a small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “No one ever wanted my body. I’m ugly.”

They all stared at him, stunned, and Maka knew exactly how they felt. She felt the same way when he told her that the first time and wondered how he could ever be proud of that. But now, now that she had been raped, she understood why that made him happy. His body was still untouched, pure, and above all his. No one else had ever owned his body from the inside. Liz sniffled and Kid put his hand on her shoulder. Beside Tsubaki, BlackStar perked up and pressed close to her, smiling gently. 

“What about this master, Soul?” Maka prompted gently because the adults were lost in those thoughts. 

“She insists that I raped her and that’s why she got rid of me.”

“Raped her?” Maka’s hand jolted in Soul’s grip, but he clung to her desperately. 

“No, no! I didn’t! She was lying! She lied about everything!” Soul protested. “I didn’t do anything to her! I never touched her!”

Maka smiled at him faintly. “I believe you, Soul. I do.”

He let out a breath of relief. “Aside from eating the child, from eating the dead, I didn’t do any of those things. I’m a…” he hesitated. “I would never hurt anyone on purpose. I would never hurt anything unless I was forced to, unless I had absolutely no choice. I wouldn’t!”

Maka rubbed her thumb over his scarred knuckles and offered him a small smile. 

“So…” Spirit said finally, breaking the silence. “There was nothing to get worked up about. It was just a misunderstanding and load of lies.” He turned to Kami and folded his arms over his chest. “Doesn’t that make you happy, Kami?”

Maka slid her eyes to her mother. “That’s why you were being so cruel to Soul, Mom? You thought he had done something horrible and you thought he was going to hurt me.”

Kami nodded slightly, clutching at her severed wrist. “I didn’t want to scare you, baby, but I think it was the wrong way to go. I should have just… told you and let this happen. I was wrong and I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Maka.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Mom,” Maka said flatly. “It wasn’t me you hurt.”

Kami’s green eyes slid to Soul. “I’m sorry, Soul,” she murmured. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I…” Soul’s blood-colored eyes darted nervously sideways and Maka gave him a small nod. “I can. Thank you,” he said and smiled faintly. “You were only concerned for Maka and you should be. I don’t see why anyone could ever want to hurt her. She’s a wonderful person.”

Kami smiled broadly, glowing with parental pride. “She is, isn’t she?”

Maka flushed. “Can we go back to what’s important now that that’s been cleared up. How are we going to save Chrona? Mom, can you really get me a baby?”

“I would have stolen one from somewhere or bought a slave-baby if it would have made you get rid of Soul, but…” She met Soul’s eyes. “He’s a good person and I see that now. I don’t want you to get rid of him.”

“Can you really get a baby, Kami?” Lord Death asked.

“Only if I bought a slave or stole one from a nursery.”

“So, we’re right back where we started,” Stein said with a sigh. “What are we going to do?”

Silence stretched across the table and Maka poked at her food. BlackStar finally returned to eating with gusto and Patty had already cleaned her plate, having completely missed the tense discussion about Soul’s past. The adults glanced at each other, amazed that the children were handling this so well.

“There’s only one thing we can do,” Kid said suddenly and eyed the fork on his plate. “We have to lie to her and then kill her.”

“What?!” Everyone shrieked.

“Yes,” Kid repeated. “We let her think Maka’s pregnant and that we’re going to give her a child. We need to trade for Chrona. When she comes to make the switch, we kill her and her cronies and take Chrona regardless. It’s the only thing we can do. I know it and you know it. It’s the only solution.”

“I’m usually opposed to violence, but I have to agree,” Mari said finally. 

“Yuca is someone who clearly needs to die,” Kami chimed in. “If we don’t kill her, she’ll just keep coming back and destroying our lives. She has to die.”

Spirit nodded. “There’s no other way, then. I won’t let my Maka get pregnant or anyone else lose their child to Yuca.”

“We’ll protect Maka, too,” Liz said with a smile. 

“We’ll make this work,” Tsubaki said firmly. She patted Maka’s shoulder and gave her an awkward hug. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“I know,” Maka murmured and smiled at her assembled friends. “I know.”

…

Soul and Maka arrived home at a little past ten when the world was dark and cool. The phone was ringing off the hook when they came in and Maka scrambled through the darkness, tripping and swearing over unseen obstacles. She snagged it from its cradle seconds before the machine picked up.

“Hello?” she asked breathlessly.

“Maka Albarn?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes…”

Whoever it was on the other end hung up abruptly and Maka spent a moment listening to the dead-silence.

“Who was that?” Soul asked faintly as he made his way to the kitchen and turned on the light.

“Wrong number,” Maka lied.

X X X

I need to step it up a little. I’m getting just a touch bored, but things aren’t lined up right. The nine months where we wait for Maka’s fake bun to bake in the oven are IN MY WAY! I see in my magical authortastic crystal ball a—TIME SKIP! Grr, I can’t have everything all spaced out! It just won’t work! Or… maybe I can. I don’t know! I need to think a little bit.   
And haha! Soul’s wanted poster turned out to be nothing! It was just the reason Kami was acting so pissy. So, now who do we hate?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	37. Two Weeks Later: The Mysterious Caller?

Short chapter because I had to get the ball rolling.

I forgot to add my warning in the last chapter—Cannibalism is wrong. Do not eat people! 

And OH MY GOD! This story has over 500 reviews—five hundred!—I feel like I’m going to fly right off the face of the world. Just WOW!

And the rather quick yet still epic return of… *dun dun dun*

ParadiseAvenger’s Recommendation Board!

“Twist of Fate” by Dyde.

And because I know everyone who reads me is lovely and wonderful and reviews with EPIC dedication, I’d love for you all to REVIEW for him. Come on! Do it or I’ll torment poor Soul some more. Rawr! Don’t make me do it! I’m a nice person and I don’t want to return to my evil ways! Mwuahaha!

X X X

~Two Weeks Later~

Wes Evans dragged himself downstairs to his mother’s beautiful sitting room. She was sitting in her favorite velvet chaise lounge, legs stretched out and feet bare though she still wore a beautiful silken gown. A book lay open in her lap, neglected, like her flute in its beautiful case beside her hip. Her spun-silver tresses spiraled down around her thin shoulders, decorated with her white songbirds as if they were hair ornaments. When Wes entered, one bird flew over to him and perched on his head. Aurora laughed softly and lifted her finger, calling for the bird to return. It remained perched on Wes’s head until he sat down at his mother’s feet and looked sadly up at her. 

“Wes, what’s the matter, sweetheart?” Aurora asked tenderly as the bird finally returned to her head.

He hesitated, looking into his mother’s fragile face. Did he dare say it…? Yes, he had to. “Mom, I know where Soul is and I’m going to get him back.”

Aurora paled. “Wes, Soul is dead.”

“He’s not dead. A woman called me and told me he’s still alive and that he has a cruel master. I have to help him!”

“Wes.” Aurora sat up in her lounge and gripped her son’s narrow shoulders. Gently, she shook him, mindful of his deteriorating body. “Listen to me, Wes, Soul is dead. He has been for a long time…” Then, she met his eyes. “What woman told you these cruel lies?”

“I don’t know, but she told me Maka Albarn in Death City has him. I have to save Soul.”

Aurora pulled him against her body, pressing his head against her breasts and stroking his hair. “Wes, sweetheart, Soul is dead. Remember? We buried him beside your dear baby brother in the family plot. Soul has been dead for almost ten years.”

“He’s not dead,” Wes protested and pushed away from his mother. He staggered to his feet. “I know where Maka Albarn lives and I’m going to get Soul back.”

“Wes—”

“No!” He shouted. “I have to see him again before I die!”

“Wes, you’re not going to die—”

“I am, Mom! You know that… You know that…”

“Wes, please—”

“I’m going to find Soul. I’m going to take him back. I’m going to save him this time.”

“Wes!”

But her son had already staggered from the room. 

Heart in her throat, Aurora rushed upstairs to Dante’s dark study. Inside, he was busily typing on his laptop and scribbling notes on a pad of sheet music. Dante’s office was a stark contrast to Aurora’s own parlor room full of light and floral patterns, white songbirds and books, flowers and music. Dante’s office was all dark hardwoods, heavy masculine furniture, dark bookshelves lined with encyclopedias, and no trace of light sneaking in through the heavy velvet curtains.

“Aurora, I’m busy. What is it?” Dante snapped when she blew into the office. Then, he took in the sight of her frantic face and immediately got to his feet and came around his heavy desk. He captured Aurora’s frail body in his strong arms and just held her tightly for a moment while she sucked in air like a drowning woman. “What’s wrong?”

“Wes has found Soul,” she whispered into her husband’s strong chest.

“What?” Dante pulled her back sharply and looked into her soft ruby-colored eyes as they slowly filled with tears. 

She only nodded and wiped her cheeks. “Someone called him and told him where Soul was.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t know.”

“Could it be a lie?”

“I don’t think so…”

“What are we going to do?”

“Dante, do you think…?” Aurora hesitated and bit her lower lip. “Do you think Soul remembers anything? Anything about what happened? About what we had to do?”

Dante pulled his beautiful albino wife closer in a rare display of affection. “I don’t know, Aurora, I don’t know. But Wes will be dead soon.”

She sobbed, heartbroken, and clutched her strong broad husband’s body closer.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Dante whispered and kissed her forehead. “I know it’s hard to say out loud, but we’ve been prepared for this.”

“I know,” Aurora whispered. “It’s just…”

“What about Soul?”

“Like you said,” she whispered after a long moment of sobbing silence. “Wes will be dead soon.”

Dante hugged his fragile wife closer to his strong frame, brass brazen saxophone cradling soft silvery flute. Upstairs, they heard Wes shuffling away at something in his room—packing to leave to save Soul from whatever he had been told. Then, suddenly, everything was quiet. Maybe Wes had passed out and when he woke up, he would forget all of this. Maybe… They could hope all of this would just blow over because they just couldn’t have Soul come back. He couldn’t come back.

…

Maka Albarn was sitting up in bed, halfheartedly listening so some of Wes Evans’ sad music. She hadn’t slept last night—stupid insomnia—and had learned a lot about Wes’s music and the rest of the Evans. She only wished she could have heard some of Soul’s music. She wondered what his piano would have sounded like. Soft and sweet like Aurora’s silvery flute? Loud but still captivating and strong like Dante’s saxophone? Or just as mournful as Wes’s violin?

Soul had stopped sleeping with her, but Maka had borrowed an air mattress from Tsubaki so he was more comfortable in the living room. 

They had fallen into a sort of routine living together. Maka usually got up and made breakfast, but Soul stuck his head in around eight if she wasn’t up. If she had managed to fall asleep, he would make breakfast. Sometimes, he came in and sat on the bed and listened to some of his family’s music with her. He never said anything about his home life and Maka didn’t ask. He just wanted to forget and she was alright with that. Whatever he wanted, she was more than ready to give. 

“Maka?” Per usual, Soul stuck his silvery head in and spied her sitting up awake in her bed, just like she had been when he checked on her before he went to bed in the living room last night. “Should I make breakfast?”

“No, it’s alright,” Maka said with a smile. “I’m getting up.”

Soul smiled back and ducked out the door.

Once he was gone, Maka opened her nightstand drawer and took out her cell phone. When she turned it on, she winced at the number of missed calls. The count just from the past two days was over ten calls. She still didn’t know who was calling her or how they had gotten her cell number, like it wasn’t enough that whoever this was kept calling her house. She knew it wasn’t Yuca because she hadn’t heard from her monstrous aunt since they parted at the asylum. 

Who on earth was calling her? And why?

She threw back the covers, put her feet on the floor, and went out into the living room. Soul had already made his bed and was watching television when she walked in. He smiled at her and asked if she had slept even though he knew the answer and Maka shook her head. 

“What are you in the mood for for breakfast?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you just saying that?”

He grinned. “Something with bacon then.”

“That sounds good!” She began clattering about in the kitchen, taking out bacon, and beginning to spread the bacon in the frying pan.

The phone rang and Maka’s heart skipped a few beats.

“Should I answer it?” Soul called to her because she was up to her elbows in bacon grease.

“Sure,” she forced out. What if it was Tsubaki or her papa? It wasn’t always the mysterious caller.

“Albarn residence,” Soul said cheerfully. Then, she heard a crash. When she raced out into the living room, she saw Soul’s face was pale and stricken and the phone was lying on the floor. A disjointed voice was ringing from the receiver. Someone was shouting Soul’s name.

She snatched up the phone and shouted, “Who is this?!”

Abruptly, whoever it was hung up again as usual.

Maka whirled on Soul. “What did they say to you?!”

He opened his mouth and closed it several times, looking for all the world like a fish out of water. Maka grasped his shoulders and shook him gently. 

“Soul, what did they say?” she asked.

“That was… that was…”

“Who?!”

“My brother.”

“Wes?”

Soul nodded.

“What did he want? What did he say?”

“That he’s coming to save me…”

“Save you?” she repeated.

Soul lifted his eyes to her face. “But you’re not hurting me and how’d he find me. He wasn’t supposed to find me…” There was something awful in Soul’s voice, something old and afraid and dark. She almost didn’t want to know what would make his voice like that. 

“What do you mean?” Maka whispered.

“He’s coming for me,” Soul breathed out and brought one hand to his mouth. 

“Soul?”

He turned to face his master, meeting her eyes. 

“Do you want to go?” she asked.

“Would you let me?”

“I want you to be happy, Soul. Whatever you want.”

His crimson eyes slid down to the fallen phone. Then, he bent to pick it up and put it back into its cradle. A long moment of silence stretched between them as he stared down at the phone and then into Maka’s pale face. “I… I want to go.”

Maka’s heart pulled unpleasantly in her chest, but she put on a smile and whispered, “Okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Whatever you want, Soul. It’s up to you.”

“I do. I want to go. I want to see my family again.”

Maka nodded and something sad must have shown in her face because he timidly touched her shoulder.

“I’ll come back,” he murmured. “I’m yours. You bought me, remember?”

Maka shook her head. “You can stay Soul. You belong with your family.”

“But—”

She shrugged off his hand. “Really, Soul. You deserve this. You don’t need to be hurt anymore.”

“But—”

“If you want to be with your family, I won’t stop you. Okay?” She smiled at him, but it felt strained so she turned away.

“Maka,” Soul breathed out.

“Good.”

Maka went into the kitchen and returned to her bacon. She didn’t say another word about Soul or his family. Honestly, she wanted him to be happy and if it was her, she’d want to be with her family too. She had to let him go, even if she didn’t want to. A moment later, he came into the kitchen and silently began helping her prepare breakfast. He didn’t say anything about it either and she was thankful for that. She didn’t want to have to say it again because honestly, she didn’t know if she could.

X X X

Remember not to eat people. It’s bad. Have a hamburger instead!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	38. His Rough Hand in Hers

Short chapter, but the next one is going to be mega-long!

And a fantastic fantabulous quote to keep everyone busy giggling while I run away… "Everything in this room is edible. Even I am edible. But that, my friends, is called cannibalism, and is frowned upon in many countries."- Willy Wonka

X X X

Within a week, Maka Albarn and her mysterious caller—who turned out to be only Wes Evans—had come to an agreement. It had taken so long because Wes wouldn’t talk to Maka, he’d just hang up sharply before she could get out a word, and Soul didn’t answer the phone very often. Finally, Maka was able to plead with him to stay on the line long enough to explain herself.

After explaining that she wasn’t hurting Soul in the least (which Soul had to second) and there was no need for him to charge to the rescue with his guns blazing, they were able to talk nicely to each other. Maka felt bad for Wes. His voice was so… flat and dead. Seeing Soul was more like his last request on this earth than an attempt to save or see his brother. His voice reminded her of his music, sad and hopeless and in unspeakable pain.

Maka and Wes had arranged to meet on Saturday. Maka wanted to spend the week with Soul and give him time to say goodbye to the friends he had made—Kid, Liz, Patty, Tsubaki, and BlackStar, even Spirit and Kami. Secretly, maybe Maka wanted to spend most of that time with him herself though she was careful not to show how important he had become to her. He was more than a slave who had saved her life. He was a friend. 

But, she knew letting Soul go home to his family with no strings attached was the best and kindest thing she could ever do for him. She was prepared to let him go because it was what he wanted and deserved. He deserved any happiness he could get out of the rest of his life after suffering so much in the past—the cannibalism, almost being eaten alive, his broken nose, being hurt and tormented endlessly until he came to her that is, and his shattered hands. 

So, she was going to let Soul go back to his family, back to the Evans, back to his music and his life—back to his happiness. 

She hoped he would be happy because she knew for certain that she didn’t want to let him go. 

… 

“Wes,” Aurora said gently as she put her favorite white songbird back into its cage. The bird looked at her strangely as she brushed it from her finger and onto its perch. She normally didn’t put them away so quickly, but Wes had staggered in and he deserved her full attention in this new state he was in—his new obsession with his lost not-dead pianist brother, Soul. She continued softly, “I’m not certain you should do this.”

“Do what?” 

“Take Soul away from this girl. He seems happy.”

Wes stared at his mother and his eyes looked so bloody and hurt. “You’d leave him as a slave, Mom?”

“Well—”

“I can’t believe this! Don’t you want him back? He’s probably suffered so much!”

“Wes—”

“Oh, I forgot, you and Dad were the ones that got rid of him in the first place. You never cared about Soul. Why’d you get rid of him Mom?”

Aurora bit her lip, watching her older son’s body begin to tremble and shake as the energy drained from him. His body couldn’t support his emotions. His body couldn’t support anything—not his life or his emotions or even his violin anymore. She was worried that the weight of the instrument would break his fingers. “Wes, sweetheart…” She couldn’t tell him the truth of why they had gotten rid of Soul. 

Dante’s loud voice rang through Aurora’s beautiful room of light and feathers. “Wes, Aurora, are you ready to go?”

“Go?” Aurora whispered.

Dante nodded. 

“It’s Saturday already?” she whispered.

He nodded again.

Wes’s pale face bloomed with happiness and then he staggered over to his father’s side. “What are we waiting for?! Let’s go!” He looked and sounded happier than he had in weeks, in months, in years, but he was so weak… He staggered into the doorframe, crying out in pain when his shoulder struck the wood hard. 

Dante put his arm around his son and supported him as he walked his family to the sleek night-black car that was waiting in the cobbled courtyard for them. 

Aurora took a small moment to herself, staring into the delicate birdcage. She put her fingers to the fine ornate wire and closed her eyes as the tears slid beneath her lids. “Soul,” she whispered. Her precious son… the one she had sold… “I’m so sorry,” she whispered and then followed her husband and dying son out to the car. 

…

Saturday came far too soon for Maka’s liking. 

She helped Soul finish packing all the clothing they had gotten from Miss Mari when she first bought him into a small rucksack along with a photograph of all of their friends together that Kid had taken and printed out yesterday. On the back, in spotless handwriting, Kid had printed all their names and the date. Then, everyone had signed it with well-wishes and hopes to see him again. It was its own little goodbye card. 

Soul slowly zipped the bag and then laid his twisted hands on top of it, breathing deeply. He was kneeling before the couch and the bag with Maka standing at his side.

“Soul,” Maka murmured. “Are you alright?”

“I’m just a little nervous,” he told her softly.

“Nervous?” She hadn’t expected that. Honestly, she had hoped he was going to say he didn’t want to leave her, that he wanted to stay, but that was asking for too much. Why would he want to stay with her and be a slave when he could go home to his family?

Soul nodded. “I haven’t seen them in almost ten years and they sold me as a slave. What if… what if they don’t really want me?”

Maka put her hand on his shoulder and smiled softly at him when he turned to look at her. “I’m sure they want you and I’m sure you’ll be happy with them. But, if they don’t—”

Soul tensed.

“—you can always come here.”

“Here?” he whispered and looked at her hopefully. 

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said to him kindly. “You’re always welcome here, Soul.”

“Thank you, Maka,” Soul murmured. 

Then, he gently took her smooth soft perfect hands in his ragged hard ugly ones. He ran his thumbs over her knuckles and she shivered at the roughness of his fingers, thick with calluses. They weren’t the hands of a pianist, they were the hands of a slave. Gently, Maka squeezed his fingers in her own and looked up to meet his crimson eyes. He was looking at her strangely—no, not strangely—he was looking at her as if she was his goddess.

“Soul?” she whispered questioningly, unsure of what exactly he was going to do. 

Slowly, cautiously, he stared into her eyes, watching her reaction, as he lifted her soft hands to his healed mouth and gently brushed his lips across her knuckles. His mouth was warm and gentle, timid and inexperienced, his lips were feather-light on her flesh and silky soft compared to the roughness of his over-worked hands, and his eyes looked like molten rubies fringed with snow-white lashes thick and long enough to shadow his face. He was so beautiful and he was kissing her hand like a prince.

Butterflies the size of Mack trucks took up flight beneath Maka’s ribcage and she was fairly certain her heart was beating loud enough for him to hear. 

Even so, when she didn’t pull away or hurt him, he continued his gentle assault. He tenderly kissed the tip of each finger, then each knuckle on each of her fingers, and finally the back of her hand. At her wrist, he hesitated, meeting her jade-green eyes again. Then, he carefully turned her hand over so it was palm up. He nuzzled his face into her palm so that her fingers cupped the curve of his warm cheek and gently kissed the pulse at her wrist. 

Then, from that position, kneeling at her feet with his face pressed into her hand, Soul whispered, “Thank you for everything, Maka. I could never… I never even hoped that I could see my family again. I didn’t think it was possible. I thought I was going to be a slave forever, be hurt and starved forever, but you… you’ve given me back everything I’ve lost…”

Maka’s heart thundered against her ribcage and she stared down at the silvery top of his head. She didn’t know what to say in the face of such gratitude. How could any one person be this appreciative of her? It seemed impossible, yet here Soul was kneeling at her feet and thanking her desperately.

“N-no problem,” she forced out. 

Soul lifted his eyes to her face, soft and molten and gleaming. Then, he gently kissed the inside of her wrist again. After a few heartbeats passed between them, Soul pulled his face from her hand and rose slowly to his feet. He smoothed the rucksack again and took in a deep breath to steady himself. 

“Thank you,” he whispered again.

Maka stared at him, soaking up every inch of hurt in his frame and in his soul—the band of white around his neck from the collar, the fruitlike bite wounds, the scar bisecting his chest, his twisted fingers, his broken nose, even his albino body. He was completely healed now, perfect and beautiful. She wanted to reach out and hug him, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t pull him in when he was so close to having everything he wanted from his life. 

Instead, she murmured, “It’s nothing, Soul. I just want you to be happy.”

He glanced at her, red eyes gleaming, and she felt as if he was looking right into her heart. Could he see that she didn’t want to let him go? Quickly, Maka turned away from him and marched into the kitchen to get a glass of milk. Milk could fix a lot of things, just like chocolate could fix a broken heart, but she wasn’t putting much stock into the healing powers of either of those things right now. She just had to get away from Soul and his beautiful grateful eyes. She didn’t want him to go, but she couldn’t stop him. She took a long drink of ice-cold milk and suddenly wished she was old enough to drink for real.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	39. Arrival of the Evans Family

Just to keep it all straight, at this time, Maka is about a month along in her “fake pregnancy.”

X X X

The Evans pulled up at the curb in a sleek night-black car. For one heart-shattering moment, Maka feared it was Yuca, but neither Yuca nor her cronies got out. Instead, three striking people—two beautiful albinos like Soul and the other a dark imposing man—stepped out of the car and approached the front door. Maka wanted to pretend she wasn’t home, but Soul was sitting on the couch and he had already seen them. She had watched him perk up, excitement and a little bit of fear going through his body.

There was a knock on the door and Maka pulled it open with a shaking hand. 

Soul remained rooted on the couch, unsure of whether to jump up and throw himself into his family’s arms or get down on his knees and pray this wasn’t a dream.

Maka allowed the musicians into her house with a gentle nervous wave of her hand and looked them over with undisguised awe in her face. She was beginning to see why even the devastating injuries on Soul’s body had done nothing to dull his attractiveness. 

Beautiful didn’t even cover it, not even close.

This family was gorgeous! 

Dante Evans was a big and formidable man, almost a giant, and he fit both his name and his loud saxophone perfectly. He had great piercing dark eyes that speared Maka to the floor where she stood harder than any nail ever could have. She felt like his black eyes were endless, like pits looking into the abyss. He had a head of rich dark hair, tousled lightly as if he had just woken up, though his eyes and face were far from sleepy. Dante didn’t look like the kind of man to ever be caught dozing off or even unprepared. He was wearing a three-piece jet-black suit with a violet shirt beneath and a nice black tie smoothed against his great barrel chest. He commanded instant respect and control.

Aurora Evans had long tumbling snow-white hair as fine as silk and snowflakes. Her eyes were large and innocent, though pained and uncertain, and not blood-colored in the least. Her eyes were more like the color of ripe summer strawberries or rich red rose petals. She was wearing slim jeans with some pale embroidery at the ankle, thighs, and surrounding one pocket with a woven belt, a form-fitting t-shirt of palest pink that clung to her breasts, thin shoulders, and flat stomach, and some delicate low heels on her small feet to match the belt at her waist. Even though she was dressed so causally, Maka couldn’t help but envision her wearing an ancient gown of silk and lace and dancing at a great ball. Aurora just looked like she belonged in the grandeur of an earlier century.

Wes Evans looked a lot like Soul when Maka had first bought Soul from the slave warehouse with several differences. The similarities began and ended at the state of Wes’s body. He was chalk-pale, skin cracked like paper, and emaciated from the cancer eating away at his body from the inside out. His eyes, deep crimson and blood-colored like Soul’s, were empty and dead. It was the eyes of the Grim Reaper looking out of those sockets, speaking of pain and loss. His hair was the same silver as Soul’s, not snow-white like Aurora’s. He was wearing jeans and a red t-shirt with at least two hooded sweatshirts on. The clothes hung off of his body and Maka could see him shivering. Wes was dying—it was unmistakable—and seeing his brother was his dying wish.

Maka had to let Soul go.

The first one to speak was Aurora Evans and her voice was light and tinkling like flute music or tumbling water. “Hello, you must be Maka Albarn. I am Aurora Evans,” the albino lady said sweetly and offered Maka one slender beautifully pale hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same,” Maka forced out. She suddenly felt like she should curtsey or bow in their presence, but tapped the urge back. That was silly. They were just people and curtseying was outdated. “Soul,” she said and was suddenly eager to get the spotlight off herself. “Why don’t you come over here? This is your family after all.”

There was no mistaking Soul’s nervousness once he scraped himself off the couch and slunk over. “M-Mom, Dad,” Soul began and then his eyes fell on Wes and his voice began just a breath of air. “Wes,” he breathed out.

Maka thought she heard something inside him break.

“Soul,” Wes whispered with equal breathlessness. 

Then, the two brothers embraced tightly. Wes crumpled, legs and body giving out, but Soul was strong enough to hold him up. Soul had always been strong enough to support his dying brother even though he was so much younger and smaller. 

Aurora smiled and clasped her hands to her chest. “Are you alright, Soul?” she asked her other son.

Soul had tucked his face into Wes’s neck, holding his brother tightly, but Maka saw him nod. Her lips curved into a small smile and she turned to face Aurora and Dante. “Would you like some tea? I think they need a minute.”

“I would love some tea and get to know the girl who is giving me back my precious son,” Aurora said and smiled beautifully.

Maka felt like she was looking at an angel. That was just how stunning Aurora was. “O-of course,” she whispered and led the two adults into her small tidy kitchen. She was suddenly very glad she had cleaned the house before the Evans arrived.

…

Wes was getting heavy in Soul’s arms so he carefully dragged his brother to the couch and eased him down against the cushions. Then, he sat comfortably at Wes’s side and just took in his brother’s deteriorated body. He looked so much different than Soul remembered, but Soul probably looked a lot different than Wes remembered too. Time had eaten away at them both, torn them apart, and picked at them like carrion-eaters on a fresh corpse.

“Wes,” Soul whispered. “How did you find me?”

“A woman called and told me where you were,” Wes confessed.

“A woman? What woman?”

He shook his head, silver hair feathering against his sallow cheeks. “She didn’t say. What does it matter? I found you. I saved you.” 

“Thank you,” Soul murmured and met his brother’s injured blood-colored eyes.

Wes reached out and drew Soul into his arms again. “That’s all that matters. I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again, Soul.”

“Wes,” Soul breathed. 

Wes’s body was all bones beneath Soul’s twisted ugly hands, thinner even than Soul’s when he had been a starving cannibalistic slave. He still couldn’t believe that part of his life was over now, so far behind him, almost like a bad dream. 

“How long has it been?” Soul asked.

“Almost ten years… They kept telling me you were dead…”

“Dead?” Soul breathed.

Wes nodded and stroked Soul’s silver hair lovingly. “Don’t worry. I won’t let them hurt you again.”

“Soul,” Wes murmured. “I’m going to protect you this time… from everything…”

Soul nodded into his brother’s shoulder. “Thank you, Wes,” he whispered. 

Suddenly, something cold and hard bloomed in Soul’s chest and he swallowed nervously though he wasn’t sure why. Wes was his brother, Aurora and Dante were his parents. Why did he suddenly feel this bubble of fear deep in his chest? He was probably just nervous to be joining his family again. Yeah, that was it. That had to be it. 

…

Aurora cupped her slender perfectly-manicured hands around the mug and inhaled the steam of the green tea. Beside her at the table, Dante looked as if he was afraid he would break the cup in his strong fingers. Maka, on the other hand, was holding the cup like it was her last lifeline. 

“So,” she began nervously but ran out of things to say after that.

Thankfully, Aurora saved her from any embarrassing silence though the topic she chose wasn’t one Maka wanted to broach. “You bought our Soul,” she began. “May I ask when?”

“About two months ago,” Maka said.

Dante pinned her down with his eyes.

“M-my mother sent me a postcard telling me to buy a slave because…” Maka couldn’t bring herself to say that Soul was meant to die, especially for her. “And when I saw him in the warehouse, he was about to die.”

Some tea sloshed over Aurora’s fingers but she didn’t seem to feel the burn. “Die?” she breathed out. 

Even Dante looked shocked and he slowly set the cup down on the table. His grip would probably break it.

Maka nodded and set down her mug as well. “It was, um,” she hesitated, “pruning week. The warehouse starves each block of slaves so they kill and eat the weakest one.”

“Eat?” Aurora repeated. She looked sick, pale and trembling.

Maka couldn’t blame her. This was her son they were talking about. Nervously, she bit her lower lip, unsure of how much she should say. 

“Please, tell me everything that’s happened,” Aurora murmured. She reached across the table and took Maka’s hands. “Please.”

Maka nodded. “O-of course,” she whispered and began at the beginning. 

She quietly recounted buying Soul, that he used to go by the name Eater but did finally admit his real name to her. (Aurora found the name Soul Eater interesting but unfortunate.) Maka continued, telling them about the attack where Soul had almost died for her sake and then everything Yuca had done to them. She told them about Soul bravely coming to save her in the abandoned asylum and sticking with her through all the troubles that came after. When she finished, Aurora and Dante simply stared at her and then glanced at the living room where Soul and Wes were chatting quietly.

“You’re really just going to give Soul back to us?” Aurora whispered finally.

“We’d be willing to pay you what you spent on him,” Dante offered.

Maka shook her head. “He’s not a slave to me. I just want him to be happy.”

Aurora touched Maka’s hand across the table, squeezing her fingers gently. Aurora’s skin was blessedly soft and smooth, so different from Soul’s coarse rough grip. “You’re a wonderful young lady,” she murmured. “I want you to know that you are more than welcome to come up and visit us, and Soul, any time you want.”

Maka smiled back. “Thank you, Mrs. Evans. I’d love to visit.”

“Please, call me Aurora,” she said kindly. “I feel indebted to you for bringing my family back together. Can I give you our phone number? Maybe Soul would like to talk to you on the phone sometime.”

Maka nodded and fetched a small book where she kept all important numbers and addresses, just in case she ever lost her cell phone. Aurora’s handwriting was beautifully neat and Maka had a feeling she would have dotted her I’s with hearts if there were any I’s in Evans.

“Here,” she said with a smile and passed Maka the book. “Please, call any time.”

Soul and Wes came into the kitchen, Wes leaning heavily on Soul’s shoulders. Carefully, Soul helped his brother sit and then slid in next to Maka. Out of habit, she took his hand where it lay on the table and squeezed his fingers. As usual, he squeezed back. It was like a secret code to them and she felt his gratitude and happiness in the clutch of his fingers. She smiled and looked over his beautiful family. Yes, Soul would be happy if he left with them. She knew that for certain.

“Well,” Dante said finally, breaking the endless circle of smiles. “We have a long drive home. We should probably get going.”

Maka’s face fell and Soul’s grip tightened on her fingers.

“Oh, Dante,” Aurora said sadly, but she nodded after a moment when she saw Wes’s sagging face. “We really should be going, Maka.”

“I understand,” Maka murmured.

“We’ll give you two some privacy to say goodbye. Thank you for this,” Aurora said. Then, she gently embraced Maka and the girl smelled crushed flowers and metal in Aurora’s snow-white hair. It was suffocating and Maka wanted to pull away, but she forced herself to hug back.

“It’s no problem,” Maka said softly. “I just want Soul to be happy.”

For the first time, Dante’s eyes softened and Maka saw that his eyes were more like rich dark earth than bottomless pits of darkness. They were fertile and lovely, like flowers could be grown in his gaze. Maka saw why Aurora and Dante were such a lovely match and why they had produced wonderful beautiful sons. Then, Dante gently lifted Wes under his narrow shoulders, dragged him to his feet, and guided him out to the waiting car. Aurora finished hugging Maka and then followed her husband outside.

Maka and Soul were alone in the kitchen, staring at each other and still holding hands. 

“Maka,” he whispered and squeezed her thin fingers, stroking her knuckles with the rough pads. “Thank you… for everything…”

“You’re welcome,” she breathed. 

Then, they rose from the table and she walked him to the door. He gripped the handle and started to turn it when Maka grabbed his other hand and pulled him back slightly. 

“Wait, Soul!” She got up on her toes and tenderly kissed his cheek. His skin was smooth and baby-soft on his face, nothing like his hands. “Promise…” she hesitated, watching his cheeks flame and his eyes stray to her lips. “Promise you’ll call me.”

He could only nod, voice lost somewhere in his chest or lodged in his throat. 

Then, he opened the door and slid into the backseat of the waiting car with his dying brother. Maka lingered in the threshold of her front door, waving long after the car was out of sight. She felt as if a small piece of her was gone now and she didn’t want to close the door and go back into her empty house. She already missed Soul and it had only been a few minutes. How would she ever last without him? And when had he grown so important to her? But he was gone now and she supposed she would never really know.

X X X

THE END!

Just kidding! Haha!

I’m not sure this story will even be OVER by FIFTY chapters. This has totally gotten away from me!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	40. Separation

Hmm… I don’t have anything to report. Except someone left me a review on my Kingdom Hearts fic, Judas’s Kiss, and asked me to please reply back, but didn’t log in or even type in their name. How am I supposed to reply to that?

X X X

Soul “Eater” Evans sat quietly in the backseat of his parents’ night-black cruiser beside his sickly dying brother. Outside the window, the scenery of Death City streaked by and was gone in the rearview mirror like a very long very bad dream. If it wasn’t for the scars on his arms in plain view and the ache of old wounds in his chest, Soul might have checked to be certain everything had really happened to him. Everything was dreamlike, faded in at the edges, dulled, and old. 

Aurora and Dante seemed almost in a hurry to put all this behind them, to forget, to move on. It was so strange… Soul hadn’t seen them in ten years and they were acting as if nothing had happened, as if they were just picking him up from a friend’s house. Did they not care what he had been through or were they just willing to act as if nothing had ever happened? As if Soul had never been a slave, as if nothing had changed? As if he was still a part of their family?

Soul swallowed thickly. “Um,” he whispered, but then he hesitated. What could he say? What could he even call his parents now?

Beside him on the plush seat, Wes slowly opened his crimson eyes and peered through his thick snowy lashes at his brother. “Soul, is something wrong?” he croaked out. His voice was flat and sick-sounding, like the blood in his throat was dying.

“No, I’m alright,” Soul murmured and leaned back into the thick cushions.

Wes smiled, blood-colored exhausted eyes sliding closed again. “You’re right, Soul,” he murmured. “Everything’s going to be okay now. I found you… I saved you…” Then, he slumped back against the cushions and the door. His breathing became deep and even, though rattling in his chest like something had broken loose from its moorings, and he either passed out or fell asleep, more likely the former. 

Soul put his rucksack behind his brother’s head to cushion it gently as the car trundled over bumps and potholes. Then, he leaned himself against the door and closed his own tired eyes, resting his face on the cool glass, watching his breath stretch out fingers of mist.

It was so strange being like this. 

He felt like a child again, like he was coming home from a trip to the beach or a late performance with his family. He vaguely remembered times like this when he was young and free. Wes was still sick then, always, and even though he was older he would lean on Soul to sleep. Though Soul was four years younger, Wes’s sickly body made him weaker and smaller. He had always leaned on Soul and Soul was always ready to give his brother some of his strength. 

Then, for the first time, Soul wondered why he had been sold as a slave. There was a place in his memory that was blank, just blackness and confusion—and hurt. He felt unspeakable pain and hurt, maybe from his shattered hands. The last thing he remembered was Wes taking the needles to his back and engraving the crest of the Evans Family into his white flesh. 

But why had Soul had to go in the first place? Had he done something wrong?

Soul cracked open his eyes and peered at his parents through his lashes. Aurora was so beautiful and frail-looking, like a porcelain doll, but Dante was a great monster compared to her. He was the Big Bad Wolf to her childish Red Riding Hood. 

Why had they gotten rid of him? And why did they just allow Wes to have him back, so easily and quickly like a borrowed book? Didn’t they want to keep him away, especially if he had done something wrong, but it seemed not? Had he even done something wrong or had something unfortunate happened? Even with these worrisome thoughts whirling in his aching head, Soul closed his eyes again and slept while his parents drove.

…

“Soul, sweetheart, we’re here.” Aurora’s voice was sweet and gentle, coming in as if from far away, and her delicate hand shook his narrow shoulder gently. 

Soul’s ruby eyes fluttered open sleepily and took in the sight of her beautiful pale face. Beside him, Dante was leaning in to scoop Wes’s sleeping body from the seat. Quickly, Soul sat up, shouldered the rucksack Maka had helped him pack, and got out of the car. Beneath red Converse sneakers, the cobblestones crunched and a breeze kissed his cheeks. The air here was rich with the scent of earth and cool from the forest. 

It was a beautiful place, just like he remembered in all his fantasies—about home, family, freedom…

Aurora closed the door gently and leaned on the car while she gazed at him. She smiled at her youngest surviving son and reached out a slender hand to him. “This way, honey,” she said gently and smiled at him even broader. Her teeth were like pearls.

Dante had already unlocked the front door and pushed his way inside with Wes’s silvery hair a fall over his strong arm.

The Evans Mansion was as beautiful and comfortable as Soul remembered. It was a great old Victorian left behind from an earlier century. The house was a great white bird with delicate spires, feathers of gingerbread, an exquisitely-carved banister wreathing the wraparound porch, countless windows like gleaming eyes and even some beautiful stained glass, a gabled roof of black shingles, and a small front walk of stepping stones. Surrounding the house and grounds was a beautifully burgeoning garden. From inside, there was some music faintly playing, an old jazzy tune that was familiar to Soul though he couldn’t place where he had heard it before. 

“Welcome home, Soul.”

A chill went down his spine though he wasn’t sure why. Soul dug his fingers into the rucksack and followed his mother, father, and brother into the great white house of his childhood. He couldn’t believe it. Finally, he was home. 

He was home.

…

Aurora pushed open the bedroom door for Soul. During the waiting week, she had made up the guest bedroom for him and tried to make it feel a little more homely. She had even put a family photograph that Wes had stashed somewhere into a frame and set it up on the nightstand. Even so, it still had that sterile this-is-not-where-you-belong atmosphere. It didn’t feel like home to Soul anymore. It didn’t feel like the place he had grown up in, familiar or safe.

“Well, here you are. This used to be your room. Wes is just next door and Dante and I are at the end of the hall. Just let me know if there’s anything you need, Soul,” Aurora murmured and gave him a smile. She patted his shoulder as she passed by.

“Thanks,” Soul whispered and watched his mother’s retreating back. 

Then, he ducked into the room of his childhood and let his eyes drift over the room. Nothing was the same as he remembered and every single trace of his existence had been eradicated completely. It was as if he had never even existed here.

Silently, he set the rucksack down on the coverlet and took the photograph of himself and all his new friends from it. He gathered the photograph against his chest, hugging it tightly to his beating heart, while he explored what had once been his private space. 

It was all starting to come back to him now, slowly but surely.

The closet used to be heaped with toys he didn’t want to put away, hung with clothing in only a few colors because his mother insisted her albino children looked best in non-pastels and nothing yellow, and just generally messy. She had also dressed Soul dully so his brother didn’t look so dead and washed out. He had also hung a giant poster of space on the door, always fascinated with the unknown. He remembered all this as he placed his palm on the cold crystal knob and eased the heavy door open. Inside, though, the closet was empty as a coffin.

The bed, once unmade and messy with childish rocket ship sheets, was now outfitted in blood-red silk, a thickly knitted black afghan quilt, and countless heaps of decorative throw pillows. A the foot of the bed, there was a trunk where Soul’s favorite train table used to be. The heavy metal furniture Soul had chosen himself as a child had even been replaced with heavy antique wood. Even the red carpet had been replaced with plain crème.

It was as if he had never existed in this room, in this house, at all.

Now, where Soul had once tacked more posters of space, there was a gigantic heavy blood-red scythe. The sight of it sent a shiver through Soul’s body. He remembered the feeling of Kuro’s cold blade gouging deep into his chest that day they were attacked in the rain. Why did this massive weapon send such a chill through him? Just because he had been hurt with an edged blade before, probably. Or maybe he just feared being hurt in general. 

He reached out a small hand and touched the sleek silver hilt, reaching up as high as he could until his fingers just brushed the joint where blade and hilt met. There was a metal oval there that was almost reminiscent of a large red eye that was just watching him. Shivering, he stretched his fingers passed the unnerving eye and over the smooth black-and-crimson curve of the blade. The pattern of black and blood-red was like a jagged smile, all sharp teeth not unlike Soul’s own. Cautiously, he put his fingertip to the edge and, even though he was being careful, the blade still bit into his flesh. 

Hissing, he put his bleeding finger into his mouth and sucked the wound carefully. 

Soul placed the photograph of his friends on the nightstand beside the photo of his family and stared at them both side by side. He was five or six in his family photo, small and still bright-eyed with that childish innocence with his cheeks still round and chubby. In this new one, his face was thin and haunted, eyes shadowed, and covered in scars. He had changed so much, been through so much.

Ten years… He had been gone ten years. 

Aurora was cradling a baby in her arms in the photo, smiling. Soul remembered that baby. He remembered the dark funeral and his mother constantly crying. It was the first time he remembered ever looking at her and thinking she wasn’t beautiful. Another dead child… Why was everyone in this family dying? It was almost like a curse.

Soul scrutinized his sliced finger, licked the remaining blood off of it, and peered out the window at the falling night beyond. It had been a long and trying day.

The forest was so deep and dark. He felt as if he had fallen off the edge of the earth and into some new strange world of dark trees. He was so alone, completely and totally alone here. He found himself missing Maka despite the fact that she had bought him as a slave and that he had been hurt a lot when he was with her. He would have gone through it all again. They had become close and he had grown used to her presence. 

He missed her.

Soul flopped down on the bed, burying his face in the mound of throw pillows. His eyes and throat felt thick and heavy, the scar bisecting his chest ached, and the bite in his throat itched as the last threads of it healed deep beneath the flesh. Breathing deeply, Soul forced himself to sleep. Luckily, he dreamed of Maka.

…

Maka Albarn gazed out the window as night descended on Death City like a horde of black vampire bats. 

The house was so empty without Soul. She hadn’t realized how much of a difference he made in her life until he was gone. When Soul was here, she always used to go to her room even if she knew she couldn’t sleep so that he could sleep in the living room. She got out of bed even if she had been up all night just to eat breakfast with him. She made dinner on a regular basis so that he stopped looking like a starved skeleton. He just made her live her life instead of drifting through like an insomniac-zombie starved for sleep. 

Now, without Soul sleeping on his pallet in the living room and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, Maka didn’t even bother going to her bed or her room. Instead, she sat down on the couch, flipped on the television, and prepared to rot her brain all night with radio waves while she couldn’t sleep.

Stupid insomnia…

Stupid Yuca…

Stupid Soul leaving to go home…

Stupid everything…

Maka flopped over, buried her face into the pillowed arm of the couch, and sobbed brokenly for what felt like eternity until she had sobbed herself out. Even then, she still wasn’t able to sleep so she stared blankly at the TV all night. Unlike Soul, she didn’t sleep and didn’t dream, either, but that was a good thing because Soul wasn’t here to chase away her demons anyway. She was alone in her house, in her head, and in her pain.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	41. Between Masters and Slaves

A long chapter for Maka because I’ll probably be ignoring her for the next couple chapters while I focus on Soul. This way I can just get her out of my way!

X X X

Kami Albarn got up before her ex-husband, Spirit, had a chance to talk her out of her plan and she knew he would try. She walked quickly through the crisp morning to the bakery down the street and bought a dozen donuts and two cups of coffee. Then, she headed to her daughter’s house to talk to Maka about everything that had happened. When she knocked on the door, there was a long moment of shuffling before Maka finally opened the door. 

The fifteen-year-old looked worse for the wear than a lot of ninety-year-old war veterans. Her face was pale and gaunt, dark bags beneath her green eyes, honey-blonde hair limp and lackluster, and it didn’t look like she had showered this morning. She was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, wrinkled and sloppy, and she was missing a sock.

“Maka,” Kami murmured when she laid eyes on her child. “You look like hell.”

“Strange because I feel like shit,” Maka snarled out. 

Hearing such awful words coming from her sweet daughter’s mouth gave Kami a shock, but she understood why Maka was in such a fierce mood. Life had dealt her a bad hand and she had been forced to just shuffle along with it. Now, another bad card had been played to her and Maka was to kind to force Soul to take a bad card in her place. So, she had let him go back to his family.

“Honey, can we talk?”

“Is this about Soul?”

“In a way.” Kami brushed past Maka in the doorway and set everything she had brought down on the kitchen table. From the box, she produced a delicious éclair, put it on a napkin, and handed it to Maka. “Here, one of these always makes me feel at least a little better.”

“I don’t think this is the kind of thing that can be fixed with food,” Maka said coldly but accepted the éclair anyway.

“Just give it a try, Maka,” Kami murmured.

Maka grumbled to herself, but took a bite of the chocolate, cream, and pastry goodness. She smiled faintly as the cream slid over her tongue. Her mother was right—it was so good. It might actually have a chance at making her problems seem a little less horrifying. She took another big bite, cream squeezing out over her fingers.

“Coffee?”

“Cream and sugar in it?”

Kami nodded.

Maka accepted the cup from her mother’s remaining hand and took a long drink. The warmth slid down into her toes and heated her up completely. She took another bite of éclair and let out a sigh of delight. Yes, everything seemed a little better now. Don’t you hate it when your parents are right?

“What else is in that box?” Maka asked.

Kami opened up the white bakery box like it was a treasure chest and Maka felt as if there should be a chorus of halleluiahs in the background. She picked out a jelly donut for herself while Maka chose something delightfully covered in rainbow sprinkles. By this time, Kami had persuaded Maka into a seat at the table and was sitting across from her with her donut resting on the lid of her coffee cup while she cupped her hand around the warmth. A phantom itch plagued her severed hand, but she resisted trying to scratch it. She knew that hand wasn’t there anymore.

Maka finished off her donut and sat back with a small smile. “What did you want to talk about, Mom?”

“Everything and anything really,” Kami said and moved her jelly donut so she could take a sip of coffee. 

“What do you mean?” Maka asked.

“Well, I wanted to apologize for the way I acted towards Soul again.”

“It’s alright,” Maka said and swallowed thickly. “Soul forgives you.”

“I should have just talked to you both. It was wrong of me to jump to conclusions without any real proof.”

“I can’t say I wouldn’t have been worried to with that Wanted Poster. Heinous crimes… That could have been anything,” Maka said softly. 

Kami smiled softly. “You’re very understanding, Maka.”

“I try.”

Kami’s smile fell flat and a seriousness took over her expression. “I also wanted to talk about what your fri—I mean, Ragnarok—did to you.”

Maka stirred her face around the rim of her cup. “I’m okay. I talked to Soul about it.”

“Talked to Soul?”

Maka nodded. “Yeah.”

“And that made you feel better?”

“It does.”

Kami didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“I talked to Tsubaki, too, you know. She’s the one that convinced me to tell everyone what happened.”

“Tsubaki’s a sweet girl,” Kami said.

“She is.”

“And Soul’s a sweet boy.”

Maka didn’t say anything, just bit her lip.

“I’d be more than happy to drive you to the Evans’ house so you can visit with him.”

“Actually, Mom…” Maka hesitated.

“Yes.”

“I really don’t want to see him again and I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me either. I’m just a reminder of what he used to be, how he used to be a slave. I’ll remind him over everything bad that happened to him and he reminds me of everything bad that happened to me. I don’t think we should see each other again.”

“But Maka, I’m sure there are good things too.”

“Like what?” Maka snapped at her mother.

“You gave him back to his family—”

“—after buying him a half-eaten slave!”

“Like you showed Soul kindness—”

“—after I almost got him killed!”

“You saved his life—”

“—I endangered it!”

“Maka, please—”

“No!” 

“Maka!”

“I don’t want to see him again!” 

“Maka! Wait!”

“And I don’t want him to see me!” 

Then, Maka bolted up from the table, hurled herself out the front door regardless of the donuts still remaining in the holy bakery box, and was gone into the morning of Death City. Kami was left staring at her daughter’s fleeing back, mouth hanging open slightly. Finally, she scratched where her hand used to be. On the horizon, dark storm clouds were rolling in like a thick quilt to cover the entire world. It was like snow, cold and grey and wet.

…

There was a pounding on the front door that roused Kid from his early morning sleep. Jeez, it was bloody loud! It sounded like an industrial jackhammer on concrete. Who on earth was up and banging about this early in the morning? (Not even Patty got up this early, but maybe that was because she stayed up until three in the morning most of the time.) Grumbling and groaning, Kid dragged himself out of bed, stuffed himself into a robe, and shuffled downstairs to answer the hammering at the front door.

Kid met Liz in the hall and she was still disheveled with sleep. Her dirty blonde hair was a haystack on the top of her head, her blue eyes were hazy with sleep, and she her robe was hanging off one narrow shoulder. Kid eyed the scars that were exposed there, but she didn’t hide her scars as she usually would have. Instead, she just smiled at him sleepily and continued making her way to the front door.

Somewhere in the house, they could both hear Patty snoring away in between the banging on the door.

Kid pulled open the door and got a fist in the face. “Yow!” he shouted. The healed flesh on his face pulled tight and he winced double from the blow to the face and the healed wound. “What the hell is the meaning of this?!”

“Maka?” Liz asked. “Is something wrong?”

Maka didn’t answer. 

Instead, her green eyes filled with tears and rolled down her cheeks. Then, she hurled herself into Liz’s arms and sobbed desperately into the older girl. For one stunned moment, Liz just stood there with her arms frozen. Then, she quickly embraced Maka tightly, stroking her back like she used to do for Patty. 

“It’s okay,” Liz purred and stroked Maka’s hair. “It’s okay…”

Kid closed the door and shuffled to the kitchen to get some ice for his face. He figured he wasn’t going back to bed now so he may as well get up and soothe his damaged face. What was it with his face lately? It was taking way to much abuse. Was he ugly?

Liz led Maka into the kitchen and started clattering away. (After a moment, she chased Kid out with the threat of being sucked into some major girl-talk. She knew how much he hated that and he was more than happy to bow out rather than be forced to smile and nod nicely for the next eight hours.) Liz put on hot water for tea and took down a box of assorted tea bags which she set before Maka along with the sugar bowl, cream pitcher, two different mugs, and two spoons. Then, she poured hot water into the mugs and sat down across from Maka.

“So, can you tell me what’s happened?” Liz asked after a long moment of silence.

Maka sniffled and wiped her face with her hands. 

Liz passed her a napkin. It wasn’t a tissue, but hey, it didn’t matter to snot. 

Maka blew her nose and stared into her tea for a while. Then, she sniffled again and wet her lips. “Liz,” she hiccupped. “My mom came over to talk to me this morning…”

“Kami? Did she say something bad?”

Maka shook her head. “No! She was so nice. She apologized for hurting Soul and asked me how I was doing, but she didn’t understand…”

Liz tucked some hair behind her ear, patiently waiting for Maka to continue.

“Liz, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“I think… I think Tsubaki might care for BlackStar a lot.”

“BlackStar is Tsubaki’s savior in a way,” Liz said after a moment of thought. “He’s done a lot to save her self-confidence. He spies on her in the bath and always tells her how beautiful her body is. After what her brother did, she really needs that.”

“Then, so you care for Kid too?”

“Of course I do,” Liz said. She glanced behind herself, making sure Kid wasn’t spying at the doorway. For a moment, she imagined she saw all the blood pooling on the sterile white tile and shook it away. What would she and Patty have done if Kid had died? 

“How much, Liz?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you… is it possible that you love him?”

Liz bit her lower lip and cupped her mug of hot tea. “I suppose so…” she murmured. Did she love Kid? She hadn’t even thought that was possible. She was a slave and he was her master, yet BlackStar and Tsubaki were so close to each other. 

“Then, do you think it’s just natural for masters and slaves to love each other?” (1) Maka asked and sniffled. 

Surprisingly, Liz shook her head. “No, I don’t think that at all.”

“You don’t?”

Liz pushed her cup away. “I’ve had a lot of masters, Maka, more than you could even imagine. I’ve never loved any of them until Kid.”

“Maybe you just loved whoever showed you kindness,” Maka whispered.

“That’s not it either,” Liz said.

“I had one other kind master, a man old enough to be my father, but I could never bring myself to care for him no matter what good things he did for my sister and me. It wasn’t even that he ever did anything cruel to us and changed. He was kind from the start, just like Kid, but I just couldn’t feel anything for him.”

“Then Kid…”

“God, I hated Kid when he first bought us. He wormed his way into Patty’s broken mind because he had food in his pockets when he bought us and she was starving. Kid was kind to us for months before I ever spared him a passing glance. No, I honestly love him, Maka. I really do. There’s no one like Kid.”

“Then what I feel for Soul is…?”

Liz’s eyes snapped up. “You care for Soul?”

Maka turned her face away. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“He’s not dead, Maka. He’s just free now. You could really love him!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Maka…”

A moment of silence stretched between them. 

“Liz, I’m not sure I love him, though. I just… I miss him. He’s only been gone one night and I feel like a hole’s been punched through my chest. It’s big and empty where he used to be. Is that what love is?” Maka asked the older girl.

“I don’t know, Maka. I don’t think it’s anything that I can explain in words or even in actions.”

“Maybe I don’t love him,” Maka murmured. “Maybe I’m just lonely.”

“Well, in eight months, give or take a few days, you’ll have Chrona back.”

“Chrona…” Maka murmured. 

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. For the second time that morning, Maka bolted to her feet, raced through the house, nearly knocked Kid over in the hall, hurled out the door, and was gone into the grey morning again. Liz tried calling after her, but it was too late. Maka was long gone.

“What was that about?” Kid asked and nursed his face. He had just taken the wall to his cheek.

“I don’t know,” Liz murmured. 

Then, she turned to face her master and gazed up at him. Did she love Kid? Did she? Could she? 

Hesitantly, Liz stretched up her hands and cupped his damaged face in her hands. Kid just looked down at her with those golden eyes of his—not pushing her away but not leaning into her either. He was waiting to see what she was going to do, to see what she wanted. Liz raised herself up onto her toes until she could taste his breath on her lips. It seemed he had brushed his teeth while she and Maka were talking. Kid’s chin angled in her hands, lowering to meet her, but Liz couldn’t do it. At the last second, she pulled away, mumbled an apology, and followed Maka out into the morning at top speed. 

Kid was left staring at her fleeing back. He could still feel her touch on his cheeks, taste her breath on his lips, feel the heat of her body soaking into his flesh, and smell the scent of her skin all around him. She had been so close to him, millimeters separating them. Had she been going to kiss him? Had she really…? Kid put his fingers to his lips and wondered what she would have felt like.

…

Tsubaki shouldered her bag and jacket, yelled for BlackStar, waiting impatiently for him to join her on the stoop, and then trucked them both off to the café where she worked. BlackStar walked behind her in a sort of zombified state of half-asleep half-awake, hands behind his head and mouth hanging open, even drooling slightly while he walked. She was getting ready to shout at him to hurry up when she saw Maka racing up the sidewalk towards them. Her head was turned down and Tsubaki could hear her gasping for breath from halfway up the block.

“Maka?!” Tsubaki called out. “Maka?! Is that you? What’s wrong?”

Maka’s face snapped up and Tsubaki saw her pale face was streaked with tears and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. She looked like she had been through hell and barely made it back. Oh no, was this all over Soul? 

“BlackStar, will you run ahead and tell my boss I’m going to be a touch late? Just tell him a small emergency popped up,” Tsubaki asked her slave.

BlackStar cracked one eye in her direction, lowered his hands from behind his head, and nodded. “Sure. No problem.” Then, she kicked himself into a jog and passed Maka in seconds, vanishing around the corner within seconds.

Maka came to stop beside Tsubaki, leaned her hands on her knees, and panted for breath.

“Maka?” Tsubaki asked and put her hand on the smaller girl’s trembling back. “Is something wrong? What’s happened? Were you on your way over to my house?”

Maka nodded. “I need to talk to you, Tsubaki,” she panted, “about BlackStar.”

“What about him?” Tsubaki’s eyes widened. “Did he break something?”

“No, nothing like that,” Maka said and straightened up. Between her run and talking with Liz, she was starting to feel much calmer and more put together. She even took a deep breath before she spoke. “I wanted to know if you… care about him.”

“Of course I do. BlackStar is kind of a savior to me,” Tsubaki said with a smile.

“Not like that,” Maka murmured. “Like… Tsubaki, do you love him?”

Tsubaki’s smile didn’t waver. She only lifted her eyes to the horizon and gazed at the brewing storm. Then, plainly, she turned to Maka and said, “I do. I haven’t told him, but I do love him. I can’t imagine a day where I get up and he isn’t around to make my life difficult. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Maka followed Tsubaki’s gaze to the cloud cover. 

“Why do you ask?” 

“Because… I’m trying to figure out why I miss Soul so much.”

“He was your friend, Maka. It’s natural to miss him.”

“But it’s more than that,” Maka murmured. “There’s something missing in me now that he’s gone.”

Tsubaki smiled. “Maybe you love him. He’s free now. You can love him.”

Maka’s smile fell. “But I can’t, Tsubaki.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you think that if he’s with me, he’ll remember being a slave? Won’t that hurt him?”

Tsubaki’s smiled slipped as well. “I suppose so, but—”

“I don’t even know if he feels the same way anyway,” Maka continued. “I think what’s best is if I just let him go, right?”

“That would be best for him,” Tsubaki agreed. 

Maka felt a drop of rain land on her face like a tear. “Then I guess I have to do what’s best for him, right?”

Tsubaki touched Maka’s shoulder. “All of this… it’s so kind of you, Maka,” she said. “If BlackStar’s family came up to me and asked for him back, I’m not sure I could let him go.”

Maka turned to Tsubaki. “Really?”

Tsubaki nodded. “Your heart is stronger than mine, Maka, and I honor you for that.”

“Thanks Tsubaki,” Maka murmured. “That means a lot.”

By then, they had reached the café. Tsubaki gave Maka a wave and headed inside. Maka lingered outside a moment longer, staring into the warmth of the café as Tsubaki and BlackStar shared a small hug. Then, the skies overhead opened up and the deluge began. Maka walked home in the rain to disguise the fact that she was crying. Goodbye, Soul…

X X X

(1) I realized as I was writing this that it seems like all the meisters and weapons are in love with each other. I guess it carried over with all the slaves and masters falling in love.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	42. Return of the Prodigal Son

IMPORTANT! Because my mom is a bitch and hates me suddenly, she’s shutting off the internet and giving my thirty days to get across the country to live with my dad. So… you all won’t be hearing from me for a while. Until I get to my dad’s house or something… (Just so no one thinks I’m some loser, I’m only eighteen and getting kicked out.) IMPORTANT!

X X X

Soul woke to someone fluffing his pillows. Groaning, he rolled over in the bed, dragging all the sheets and blankets around with him, and stretched out his arms in search of the pillow-fluffer. “Maka?” he mumbled. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, she would come out to where he was sleeping and try to make him more comfortable by fluffing his pillow or covering him with an extra blanket. His arm found a slender waist, hook around it, and drew it close. 

There was a small feminine shriek and whoever was neatening his bed flopped down beside him in the bed. Soul buried his face into his captive’s shoulder and felt small cold hands pushing him away. That wasn’t like Maka. On the few occasions he had drawn her into his pallet with him, she had only snuggled in deeper and started stroking his back and his hair while he nodded back off to sleep. That must mean he hadn’t caught Maka in his arms, but who was this then?

Soul eased his crimson eyes open, squinting at the slant of sunlight that was lying across his face. A terrified little mousey face stared back at him. It seemed he had captured an incredibly slender woman maybe in her late twenties in his grasp. Quickly, he released her and sat up in bed, rubbing his tired eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Soul said gently. “I was dreaming.”

The twig-thin woman scrambled off the bed and stared at him with her large golden eyes for a long moment. Then, her lips curved into a thin grimace or confusion. “You… you’re not Wes…”

Soul turned his gaze to her. She was clearly a slave who had been through a lot of pain—maybe at his family’s hands, maybe not. Soul couldn’t be certain, after all, he hadn’t been home in ten years. Her body was shapely and quite lovely for a starved slave, but she was so thin Soul wondered how his grip hadn’t snapped her in half. She had shoulder-length blonde hair that was twisted and twined in some sort of strange style and sloppily cut at the back. Her eyes were watching Soul closely, calculating who he was if he wasn’t Wes, and he felt like an insect under a glass plate.

“I’m not Wes,” Soul said finally. “I’m his brother, Soul.”

The woman took a step back. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, young master,” she said quickly with a small bow. “Miss Aurora has asked me to check in on Wes whenever I see him. I always check on him in the morning and he wasn’t in his room. He sleeps in here sometimes because it used to be your room. He says it makes him feel closer to you. When you were snuggled in the blankets like that, I’m afraid I mistook you for Wes. My apologies, young master.”

“It’s nothing. I should be getting up anyway,” Soul said and smiled faintly at her.

She gasped when she saw his teeth and he snapped his mouth closed. “I’m sorry, young master. It’s just…”

“I look like a monster?” he supplied.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Soul lowered his eyes. 

The woman bowed again and began smoothing out the covers. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Soul said. “Besides, I know it’s true.” 

Maka must have lied about his smile to spare his feelings and he had believed her—stupid, stupid! He knew he looked like a monster with those jagged teeth, red eyes, and snow-white hair. He was some sort of beast dredged up from the pit of Hell.

“My name is Medusa. I am the house slave,” the woman said softly as she finished fluffing the pillows. “Please, let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“Thanks for making the bed,” Soul murmured. Then, he shrugged into one of the hoodies Maka had bought for him, zipped it up to his throat tightly, and left the guestroom—his old room and his new room, he reminded himself.

It was early and it seemed like the house was still in a sleepy state. No one save Soul and Medusa were awake yet, and maybe Wes though Soul had no idea where his brother might be. His parents seemed to be still sleeping and the only music was that of the songbirds outside and in the house.

Silently, Soul padded on bare feet through the hallowed halls of his youth. He found a wall of family portraits and searched for his own face among his beautiful family, but he wasn’t there. He had been erased from everything here. He lifted his finger and traced his brother’s face, seeing Wes’s descent into the cancer. Aurora’s face was never happier than when she was holding her baby in her arms, her poor dead child. Dante was the only one unchanged in each photograph. His expression was equally fierce and strong in each glossy print.

“Why was I sold?” Soul whispered.

“Because your hands were broken.”

The voice rang sharply through the hall and Soul jumped out of his skin. He whirled around and saw Medusa standing beside him with a flat of sheets wrapped up in her arms. She watched him with those eyes of hers and his skin crawled.

“How do you know that?” he whispered, voice croaking in surprise.

Medusa turned and walked away, calling back over her shoulder. “Because I was here,” she said coolly. “I’ve been with this family for twenty years. Don’t you remember me, Soul?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer, just simply turned the corner and was gone.

Soul stared after her for a long moment and then down at his twisted hands. Slowly, he squeezed his fingers into fists and felt the ache of shattered bones, torn tendons, and ripped muscles. His hands… had his parents really gotten rid of him just because he couldn’t play piano anymore? Was that the truth? Sighing, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and turned his back on both the empty portraits and Medusa. 

…

Wes sat down on the piano bench, lifted the fall (1), and ran his fingers across the ivory keys. The keys were polished to a shine, almost glowing in the dim light, and Wes wanted to lift the lid so that the grand piano would look even grander but it was too heavy for his wasted arms to lift. Even his violin was starting to feel heavy in his arms and the piano was too strong an instrument for him anyway. Plus, the piano was Soul’s. This always had been and always would be Soul’s beautiful glossy Broadwood and Sons (2) Grand Piano.  
Suddenly, a spike of pain ran through Wes’s body and he doubled over, groaning. His face mashed into the keys and sent out a wretched discordant twang-oing that sounded as if the piano itself was in pain. 

Who knew? Maybe it was. It hadn’t been played in ten years. Maybe it was a lonely piano, lonely like Soul. Or maybe the piano just didn’t like Wes to touch it.

“Wes?”

“I’m okay,” he forced out.

Someone put their hands on his back and gently peeled his face off the ivory. Wes’s head lolled back against a bony shoulder and he found himself staring up into his brother’s crimson eyes. Soul’s face was lined with concern and her gently eased his brother back onto the bench. Wes hadn’t even realized he had fallen off.

“Wes, what are you doing in here? At the piano?” Soul asked and sat on the bench beside Wes. He couldn’t help himself as his fingers wandered over the ivory keys, but he didn’t press any.

“I always come in here,” Wes murmured. “It makes me feel close to you.”

Soul put his hand on Wes’s shoulder and felt him trembling. “You don’t have to do that anymore. I’m really here now.”

“To stay?” Wes asked.

“To stay,” Soul agreed.

“What if something bad happens again?”

“Like what?”

“Like your hands…”

“They’re already broken,” Soul mumbled. “And I already can’t play piano anymore.”

“Oh,” Wes breathed. “You can’t play piano?”

Soul shook his head.

“Why not?”

Soul flexed his fingers and pain raced through his shattered digits. “It hurts,” he told Wes.

“Oh,” Wes breathed again and leaned into Soul’s side. “Soul?”

“Yes?”

“Hand me my violin… I want to play for you…”

Soul lifted the polished instrument from the glossy lid of the grand piano and handed it to his brother. Then, he picked the bow off the music stand and passed that over as well. It was strange sitting at the piano while Wes was going to play the violin, like a mixed up sort of dream.

Wes’s red eyes were half-lidded as if he was asleep, snowy lashes shadowing his face, but he silently tucked the violin under his chin and adjusted the bow in his slender fingers like he was holding something unspeakably fragile. Staring somewhere past Soul’s head, Wes began to play and for the first time ever, Soul thought he heard true happiness in his dying brother’s music. A small smile curved his lips as he listened.

…

Aurora stuck her head into the piano room with several white songbirds perched in her white hair and smiled softly at the sight that greeted her. Wes was stretched out on the piano bench with his head in Soul’s lap. Her younger son was absently stroking both the ivory and ebony keys and his brother’s silvery hair. 

“Soul,” Aurora called gently.

Soul jolted as if struck and snatched his hand back from the keys. “M-Mom,” he choked out.

She came to stand beside him and gently took his hand in her own. She explored the length of each finger carefully, tracing the jagged edges of bone and the damage that hid beneath the flesh. “Your poor hands,” she whispered. “Can you move your fingers?”

He flexed them for her but didn’t bother to disguise his wince of pain. 

“It hurts,” Aurora murmured. “I see…” Gently, she traced the path of a jagged scar on the back of his hand that wrapped all the way around like a bracelet. “What is this from, sweetheart?”

“Shackles,” Soul whispered.

Aurora sucked in her breath and Soul tried to pull away, but she tightened her grip on him. “No, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You never deserved to suffer like that.”

Soul smiled slightly.

Aurora put her finger to his mouth. “And your teeth…”

His smile fell.

Gently, she drew him into an embrace. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry…” 

Soul leaned into her and slowly wrapped his arms around his mother’s narrow waist and just soaked up the tenderness of her arms. How long had it been since he had been hugged like this, before Maka that was? It felt like an eternity. A sigh of contentment pulled from his lips and Aurora stroked his hair gently.

“My poor Soul,” she whispered.

“Mom,” he whispered. “I… I don’t remember what happened…”

She tensed, her arms closing around him like the protective casing of a clam. “What do you mean, Soul?”

“I don’t remember what happened to my hands.”

She tucked her face into his white hair. “It was an accident, baby. There’s nothing to remember.”

Soul let it go, but he couldn’t stop the next words from escaping his mouth. “Why did you get rid of me, Mom?”

“What?” Her sweet voice cracked.

“Why did you sell me as a slave?”

“Soul, some things happened that were out of my control…”

“But why?”

“I can’t tell you, sweetheart,” Aurora murmured. Then, she gently pulled away from Soul, leaned down to place a kiss on Wes’s forehead, and practically ran from the piano room. 

A single white feather from one of her songbirds floated down to rest on Soul’s damaged knuckles. Cautiously, he stroked the feather and then tucked it behind his ear. He took a deep breath, placed both hands on the keys, and tapped out a simple melody. Even as the pain speared through is hands, he forced himself to keep going. He found that it was as if he never stopped playing, everything came back to him as he touched the keys. He remembered the notes and the music, his favorite symphony, everything about this glorious Broadwood and Sons Grand Piano. The melody was discordant and he hit countless wrong notes as the pain in his hands increased. A small sob of agony escaped Soul’s mouth.

“Soul?” Wes groaned.

Soul stopped abruptly and gasped out in relief as the pain in his hands abated. God, how could something as simple as playing the piano hurt him so much? Even making a fist and punching someone with his broken hands didn’t hurt that much. It was as if something inside his hands just didn’t want to, or couldn’t, deal with playing the piano anymore. As if something dark was lurking in his subconscious… something that prevented him from playing. 

“Soul?” Wes repeated.

“Yeah?”

“I thought you couldn’t play anymore…”

“I can’t. It hurts too much.”

“Oh,” Wes breathed.

There was a knock on the door and Medusa’s golden head peeked around the threshold. “Young masters, breakfast is ready. Would you like to come to the kitchen to eat with your parents or should I bring your breakfast here?” the woman asked. Her golden eyes burned.

Soul helped Wes to his feet and said, “No. Thank you, Medusa, but we’ll walk to the kitchen.” 

Wes nodded.

“Alright,” Medusa said and bowed out.

“Wes?” Soul murmured as he supported his brother. “Do you remember how my hands were broken?”

Wes shook his head. “No, Soul, I don’t. I’m sorry…”

X X X

(1) The fall is the actual name of the part of the piano that comes down to cover the keys. I wasn’t sure how many people knew that and didn’t want anyone confused.

(2) Broadwood and Sons are an incredibly old piano company from 1728. I had to take a touch of creative liberty because back then pianos were wooden and not glossy black yet, but the carving and style of the Broadwood pianos are so beautiful that I couldn’t help but slip it in.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	43. The Missing White Songbird

I feel like I’m having way to many time skips so close together, but those extra nine months while we wait for Maka’s fake bun to bake are really screwing with me. So, everyone—including me—is just going to have to deal with it. Oh well…

With this time skip, Maka’s fake pregnancy is now in month seven. Okay?

Look at me! I’m back from the dead!!!!! I am in Tennessee using hotel Wi-Fi so I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but I’m alive and I’m okay. I’m updating! I’m on my way to Arizona with my Dad and my mom is rotten still, but I’m hanging in there. Thank you all for your wonderful support! Here is your reward!

X X X

~Six Months Later~

The six months passed quickly for Soul Evans. He had given up trying to ask his family what had happened to his hands or why he had been sold as a slave. He got the same answers each time—‘There was an accident’ and ‘Some things happened that were out of our control.’ 

Instead, he devoted his attention to his shattered hands and his mother was right behind him the whole way. They paid for the best reconstructive surgery to replace six of his most damaged knuckles, to straighten a few wildly crooked bones, and even to buff out the thick patches of stone-hard flesh on his palms. Slowly but surely, his broken hands became capable of playing the piano again. Even so, unspeakable pain still burned Soul’s hands from the inside out when he tried to play but he continued through the agony. This was something he wanted. He wanted to have this piece of himself back again, as if maybe everything else he had forgotten would come back to him if he could just reclaim the piano. 

Within those six months, Soul began to feel as if he had never been apart from his family. 

He smiled and laughed despite his teeth. He didn’t feel so strange with his white hair and blood-red eyes around his mother and brother who were also albinos like him. He spent endless hours with Wes, he curled up in his mother’s lovely study to play with her songbirds, and he sat at his father’s desk and learned about the family instrument business.   
He didn’t think of Maka anymore, except late at night when he was falling asleep and even those occasions were becoming few and far between. He didn’t have nightmares anymore. He didn’t flinch when his father raised a big hand to wave or to pat him on the back. He hugged his mother and brother occasionally and always accepted their embraces. He even got used to Medusa taking care of all the chores he was used to doing himself and then being beaten for doing it wrong. 

Soul’s life was perfect again. (Or maybe for the very first time… He couldn’t remember after all.)

Then, something happened that turned his world upside down. It was such a small thing—a small stupid thing. Looking back, he never would have guessed something so small would have turned his entire life inside-out and upside-down, but it did.

One of Aurora’s white songbirds went missing.

… 

Aurora checked the latch on the delicate cage one final time and scooped the remaining two birds into her hands. She set them on the top of her head like ornaments and stroked their backs gently. For some reason, the little white birds were trembling as if there was a poaching cat in the room, but there was only Soul and Wes standing just behind their beautiful albino mother. Dante wasn’t even there—he was still stalking around the house, wondering how the loss of one little bird could upset his family of delicate albinos.

“I just don’t understand it,” Aurora murmured and closed the cage. “There’s nothing wrong with the cage or the door and I can’t find my little bird anywhere in the house. It’s as if the poor creature was eaten.”

“What about the windows?” Soul asked. “Could it have gotten outside?”

Aurora shook her head. “No, I checked all the windows and they’re all still closed and even locked.”

Dante stuck his head into Aurora’s lovely study and said with his typical amount of compassion, “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll get you another bird.”

Aurora didn’t answer, only continued absently stroked the two remaining birds’ glossy white feathers.

Soul turned to Wes. “What do you think happened?” he asked his older brother.

Wes rolled his thin shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s like the locked room mystery (1).”

Soul put her hand on Aurora’s shoulder and the shivering birds shied away on her head. “Mom, would you like me to help you look again?”

Aurora sniffled, her ruby eyes glassy with unshed tears. “No, that’s alright, dear Soul. It’s only a little bird,” she whispered. Then, she pulled away from her younger son, went to the window, and looked out over the garden. She put her hand to the glass as countless sparrows flew by outside, resting in the rosebush beside the window.

Soul decided then that he was going to catch his mother a bird.

But for now, they would have to leave Aurora in peace. Soul put his arm around Wes’s shoulders and guided his dying brother from their mother’s study. Wes was leaning into him hard, trembling, and Soul imagined he could just feel his brother’s body breaking down as the cancer ate away at him. 

“Wes, I’m going to try to catch our mother another bird. Do you want to come with me?” Soul offered even though he thought the weight of the sunlight would break Wes in half.

Wes shook his head. “No… I’m tired,” he said breathlessly. “I want to sleep…”

So, Soul helped Wes up to his room and eased him down on the bed. It looked as it Wes was going to be lost among the pillows and countless blankets and all the medical equipment that helped him through the night. There, Wes lay gasping for a moment as if he had just run a marathon. 

Soul clasped Wes’s hand. “Do you need anything, Wes?”

Surprisingly, Wes pulled his cold hand from Soul’s warm one. “No… I just want to sleep…” Then, he rolled over and gave Soul his back and didn’t say anything else. 

Soul wasn’t sure how to take his brother’s sudden change in attitude. Usually Wes would beg Soul to lie with him until it fell asleep, but today… it was as if Wes hated Soul. So, the healthy younger brother left the bedroom of his dying elder brother and closed the door silently behind himself. Then, Soul leaned on the door and took a deep breath. He supposed he could see why Wes would be a little angry with him—not even with him specifically, just angry. Soul had a perfect though scarred healthy body and Wes’s was being eaten from the inside-out by the leukemia he was cursed with. Soul might even be a little upset in his position. He understood perfectly. 

Sometimes, life was cruel and sad.

But there was nothing Soul could do to help his brother. He could help his mother though and he could catch her another bird in the garden. So, silently, Soul left his brother’s room at his back and went to the garden where Medusa was toiling away at one of the many prized rosebushes Aurora had planted. She lifted her golden eyes to Soul when he came outside and offered a small thin smile. 

“Hello Soul,” she said because he insisted that she stop calling him ‘young master.’ 

Soul smiled back. “Hi Medusa. Did you hear about my mother’s bird?”

Medusa nodded, pulled off her gardening gloves, and looked up into the clear blue sky. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, you know,” she said finally.

“What do you mean?”

Medusa met Soul’s eyes. “This isn’t the first time birds have gone missing.”

Soul stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” she asked and snipped off a long shaft of spines. “This has happened before.”

“Then,” Soul cast his eyes up at all the windows of the house. “Someone in the house must be taking the birds.”

Medusa continued working and didn’t answer him.

“Right?”

“Then why didn’t you find the bird?” Medusa asked.

“What?” Soul whispered and then realized what she meant. If someone had simply taken the bird from its cage, then he or Aurora would have found it when they searched the house. For the bird not to have been found, one of two things had to have occurred. Either the bird had been let outside, into the sky and freedom, or… the bird had been killed and hidden somewhere. Soul hoped for the former rather than the latter. 

“Ah,” Medusa said and put the shears into her wheel barrel. “I see you’ve figured it out.”

Soul nodded, but still whispered, “What happened to the bird?”

Medusa lifted the handles of the wheel barrel and started to wheel it away. Over her shoulder, she called back, “You’ll find out.”

He stared after her until she had vanished among the fountains, flora, and beauty like a ghost. 

“Soul!”

The young man jumped out of his skin. His father’s voice was sharp and sounded rather angry. Soul whipped his head around, looking for the source, but he couldn’t find anything for a long moment. Then, he looked up to see Dante leaning out one of the windows upstairs, glaring down at him.

“Soul, what are you doing talking to Medusa? She’s our slave. Come inside!”

“I was going to try to catch Mother a bird,” Soul called up. “I won’t be long.” 

Dante didn’t look happy, but then again he never really did. He just grunted, nodded, sucked his head back inside, and closed the window with a bang.

Soul let out a rush of relieved breath. 

Sometimes, he thought Dante wanted to kill him but other times he knew Dante really loved him. Maybe the older man just had trouble showing his affection to a son who’s life he had missed out on because Soul had been a slave. Soul probably would have been a little unsure in Dante’s place, but Aurora and Wes both accepted him so it wasn’t like he was a stranger in his own home. Even Medusa was kind of his friend.

He turned back to the garden, to the giant bush of blue hibiscus being feasted on by a mass of yellow and green butterflies, to the bushes of roses, to the gorgeous lilacs so fragrant and creeping honeysuckle, and finally the countless sparrows in the garden. 

Soul fetched a piece of bread from his pocket and crumpled it in his palms. Then, he reached out his hands to the birds and waited for them to come to him. He didn’t have to wait long. With his eyes and hair, they probably thought he was his mother. Soon, his fingers were loaded with birds and they were resting on his head and shoulders. It was easy to find one that was almost pure white and gently close his hand around and over its wings. 

Gently, he shooed the others off his body and carried the single white bird against his chest, keeping it trapped in the tail of his shirt and one cupped palm. Aurora was still standing in her study though she had out her remaining two birds away.

“Mother,” Soul called quietly and couldn’t help but smile like a proud child. “I caught you another bird, to replace the one that’s lost.”

Aurora looked slightly stricken, but hid it quickly. “Oh, thank you, Soul, sweetheart,” she murmured and took the bird gently from his hands. It landed quickly on her shoulder, clutching at her sweater with its little claws. “It’s beautiful and that’s very kind of you, precious, but this is a wild bird. He really belongs outside.”

Soul’s smile drooped a little. “Oh…”

“You understand, yes?”

He nodded.

Aurora opened the window, cupped the bird in her hand, and released it back into the warm afternoon. “I know you meant well, Soul, sweetie,” she murmured and gently embraced him. She smelled of crushed flowers and ink and metal, but Soul burrowed deeper into her arms. 

“Mother, I believe Wes is upset with me.”

“What would make you think that?” Aurora whispered and her voice trembled a little.

“Earlier, he pushed my hand away.”

“He was probably only tired and getting cranky,” she murmured an pushed Soul back so she could look into his face. She stroked his healed hands and cupped his face in her soft hands, then she touched his hair and smoothed her thumbs over his lips, and finally caressed the fruitlike scar at his throat where he had been bitten. She stared at Soul and touched him as if he was about to disappear forever in front of her, like he was made out of smoke or incredibly fragile.

“Mother?” he whispered.

Aurora gently kissed Soul’s forehead, his nose, his cheeks, his chin, and finally his lips in the gentlest of pecks. (2) “My beautiful boy,” she whispered.

“Mother, is something wrong?”

“No, nothing, sweetheart,” she said with a thin forced smile. “I am only worried for my bird.”

Soul nodded. “We’ll find him,” he said firmly.

Aurora kissed his cheek again, gently, and her lips lingered this time. When she pulled away, she whispered, “I know, sweetheart, I know. Why don’t you go play the piano a little before supper?”

“Alright,” Soul whispered and left his mother’s study. Just before he closed the door, he saw her fall to her knees and bury her face in her hands. Crying… why was she crying? A shiver went down his spine and he turned to see Medusa watching him closely. When their eyes met, she quickly scurried away like a roach caught in the light. 

What was going on with this family, with Medusa and her cryptic messages, with this missing bird, with Wes, with everything?

…

Thorny branches were closing in on him like a tunnel, coiling and caving in like broken walls. Roses were like spots of blood in the thorny walls, a few birds were perched among the thorns, and the horizon was the color of blood. The stepping stones beneath his feet were cracked and broken. He heard the fountain running somewhere behind the high bushes. It seemed almost as if everything in the garden was twisted and decayed. It had become a nightmare world as Soul pushed through the thick rosebushes.

The garden shed loomed before him and the windows were full of bright light. They lights inside blazed sharply and Soul saw a dark shadow illuminated there in the window. It wasn’t threatening, just standing there silently without moving. Soul opened the door, but the shed was empty.

“Hello?” Soul called.

A cool wind pulled at his clothes and hair, sucking him backwards and out of the shed. The door banged shut loudly even though the breeze was gentle and faint. Soul jolted, a shiver worming its way down his spine. The wind pushed and pulled at him, guiding him around the corner of the garden shed. Then, a powerful gust of wind blasted into him and drove him to his knees. His hands sank deep into the damp mulch and Soul spotted a delicately carved cross of wood buried deep into the soil and half-hidden behind a veil of honeysuckle.

Something pulled at Soul’s chest and he ripped away the blossoming vines. The earth beneath them was sunken in and soft. Soul dug in with his fingers, tearing away the soil until he felt something strange in his hands. It felt like… feathers… and something was faintly moving?

Soul cursed the darkness and, in answer to his prayers, the lights inside the shed winked on. The light fell across his filthy hands in a golden beam and Soul let out a shriek before dumped what he had pulled from the earth into the ground again. He scrambled back desperately and the walls of thorns behind him dug into his exposed back. 

Moldering there in a shallow grave was Aurora’s missing bird, infested with maggots in its decay.

“Someone in the house… killed the bird… but why?” 

A shadow fell across Soul’s body and he felt agonizing pain in his hands, as if they were being broken all over again. His heart thundered against his chest as everything around him crushed down like a stone. Soul struggled to turn his head, to see what was happening, but he couldn’t. His body felt broken apart as the pain in his hands spread up his arms and into every inch of him. Was this what death felt like? And then, something tore into his stomach, rending the flesh apart at the seams, and a scream escaped his mouth.

Soul woke with a start in his sweat-soaked sheets. 

“What was that?” he whispered. “A dream?” 

He clenched his fingers in the sheets and felt a small stab of pain go through his healed hands. He stared at his hands in the faint moonlight streaming through the windows. He sat up in his bed and stared out the window at the shadowed garden below. His crimson eyes strayed to the garden shed, dark and quiet and empty of shadows, and he wondered if there was the moldering skeleton of the missing bird buried beside the shed. 

Was that possible? And who had killed the bird in the first place? 

Soul rolled over and burrowed deeper into the damp covers, cocooning himself in the warmth of his own body. He didn’t know why he suddenly felt so cold or so unsafe and unnerved in his own home. All because of this little missing white bird…

X X X

(1) The locked room mystery isn’t specific, but the scenario is someone is dead inside a room and the door is locked from the inside and there was no feasible way for anyone to escape the room without using the door. So, how’d it happen…? (Suicide is not the answer.)

(2) Just in case anyone wants to try to take Aurora kissing Soul the wrong way, I figured I’d yell at you. Has no one ever been kissed by their parents? When you’re little, you still kiss them on the lips. So Soul isn’t little, but Aurora last saw him when he was six. She’s missed out on a lot of childhood so she gets a little slack. (Just go with it, I’m not V.C. Andrews so there will be no incest—at all! Ever!)

Questions, comments, concerns?


	44. Gardens, Smiles, Ghosts, and Prayers

I’m so pleased to see that everyone missed me! I feel so special! I’m on my way to go live in Arizona, from Pennsylvania, with a dog, cat, and lizard. I didn’t drag ass updating of my own free will. I had no internet so I just couldn’t. That’s why I put everything on hold and let you all know. I knew it would be a while! Everyone missed me!!! Happy, happy.

Everyone should check out my two newest stories, Upright, a novelization of the doujinshi of the same name, and Original Sin, a novelization of the movie of the same name.

X X X

Soul got up a little earlier than usual the next morning and went out into the garden when the leaves and flowers were still covered with shining dew. He went right to the garden shed, ducked around the corner as he had in his dream, and knelt among the honeysuckles vines growing low to the ground at the side like a thick carpet. They didn’t look disturbed, but he pulled them carefully aside anyway so that they still weren’t torn or pulled up. Someone might have been able to do the same in order to bury the little white bird. Then, he touched the dark soil beneath the vines. It was soft and recently dug and gave away under his hands. 

A violent shudder wracked his body. 

Even so, Soul dug his hands into the earth and searched for the little dead bird that had been in his dream. He didn’t find anything except tiny old bones. They were probably bird bones and Medusa’s words flashed through his mind again. ‘This isn’t the first time birds have gone missing,’ she had said. This proved it. This was a grave of old bird bones, hidden in the shadow of the garden shed. If they had only died, Aurora would have put them in her little bird graveyard beneath the window of her parlor. These skeletons had been hidden, killed in secret and buried in secret.

Soul raked the earth back over the little grave and covered it with the honeysuckles vines again. Then, he dipped his head and said the little prayer he had said a lot as a slave when he was burying the bodies of those his master had forced him to eat.

“How’d you find it?” Medusa’s voice rang out, startling him violently.

Soul looked up into her face and saw she was smiling thinly again. She wore a smile a lot. Sometimes, it unnerved Soul and he felt as if she knew something no one else did and was prepared to use it to her advantage. Other times, he found her smile wry and frail, as if she had been through more than he had and was still in pain. Now, that smile was neither. She looked incredibly concerned, hiding it behind the mask of a smile. 

“You knew this was here?” he whispered.

She nodded.

“How?” he asked her. “Did you kill the birds?”

She shook her head.

“You know who did, don’t you?”

Medusa nodded slowly.

Soul got to his feet, grabbed her, and pulled her into the shadows of the shed with him. “Who? Who did it?”

She shook her head and the smile fell from her face.

“Medusa, please, tell me!” Soul begged. “Was it the same person who broke my hands?”

Her golden eyes burned. “Yes!” she forced out and tried to pull away from him. “I can’t tell you anymore.”

“Why not?!”

“Soul!” Dante’s voice rang out through the silence of the morning like a gunshot.

In that moment, Medusa pulled away and vanished quickly among the rosebushes like some kind of ghost. She looked as if she was practically running away from him. Soul glanced down at the bird’s grave hidden beneath the carpet of honeysuckle and wondered just how many of Aurora’s birds were buried there in the mass grave or if they were they buried separately all over the garden. Then, he heard his father shout again and quickly returned to the house. 

The moment Soul walked back in through the door, a chill settled on him like a ghost had put its heavy arms around his shoulders. Something was wrong with this place, with this family, with this house, and it all started with one dead white bird that had been buried in the garden.

…

When Soul sat down at the kitchen table across from his beautiful albino mother, he saw that she had been crying. Her ruby-colored eyes were red-rimmed and it made them seem like they were bleeding, extremely painful. He asked her what was wrong and she only lifted those wounded-looking blood-colored eyes to his face and held out her arms to him. Soul came to embrace his mother and saw that there was a single white bird perched in her garlands of snow-white hair. It twittered at him when he glanced at him and hunkered down in his mother’s hair.

“Mom, the other bird…?”

She shook her head and buried her face into the side of Soul’s neck. Her lips quivered and the tremble spread slowly through her entire body until she was shaking like a leaf in Soul’s arms. Dante came into the kitchen a moment later with Medusa, who kept her eyes on the ground as if she had been reprimanded, and neither of them glanced at Aurora.

Two of her three birds were dead now.

Soul couldn’t help but wonder what would be killed when all the birds were gone.

…

Wes was sitting in the window seat, playing the violin and looking like a thin wisp of smoke, when Soul came into the piano room. He sat down at the beautiful piano and began to accompany his brother with his own melody. The ivory keys felt smooth and perfect and cool, like a missing piece of himself that he had just got back, beneath Soul’s healing fingers even though the agony of playing still tore its claws into him like fire.

This time, the brothers’ musical genius clashed like it never had before. 

Soul’s music was full of life as it always had been, under lain with some darkness because he was still unnerved by the dead birds and his broken hands and the agony that speared through his fingers. Wes’s was nothing but sadness and death, tears as it always was. 

The clash of life and death, darkness and light, was terrible. 

It was a calamity. 

These were not things that were meant to be together. Just like the brother who had been sold as a slave was not meant to come home again. Just like Wes was supposed to die, just like all Aurora’s other children. Maybe she was never meant to have any to begin with.

Wes snapped his head up and his bloody eyes drilled into Soul’s face almost angrily. “Stop it,” he hissed bitterly. He looked like he wanted to get up and slam the fall down on Soul’s playing fingers, but he was too sick and too weak—dying.

Soul’s agonized fingers tromped down on the keys with a clamor. “What?” 

Wes had never before asked him not to play. Sometimes, Wes came searching for Soul just so they could play together.

“Wes, is something wrong?” Soul asked. 

“I just… I want to play by myself…” Wes snapped sadly. 

Soul lowered the fall cautiously over the keys. “I understand,” he said softly. Then, he rose from the bench and left the piano room. 

He wasn’t sure what to do now so he drifted through the giant house silently, shadowing Medusa in the halls, but she escaped him like a wisp of smoke. He went to his mother’s parlor where she was cradling her final bird and her flute in her arms, looking as if she wanted to cry but not, and didn’t see fit to interrupt her. He made his way to his father’s office and stood in the threshold while Dante talked on the phone. His father was too busy for him, Aurora was occupied with grief, Wes was pushing him away, and Medusa was no friend for Soul. He was outsider in his own home… again… 

He clenched his healed hands into fists.

Did he dare miss Maka?

…

Night fell quickly on the Evans household. Soul had passed the day reading in the garden, unwanted by the rest of his family and without anything else to do, but the heat had made him tired so he retired to his bedroom after dinner. He was snuggled deep in a cocoon of blankets, relishing the warmth of his own body and a real bed (even though he had been home and in said bed for seven months now). Pale moonlight streamed in through the window and fell across his body like silver. 

Outside, a white owl swooped through the garden and called out into the night. “Who? Who?” asked the owl. “Whooooo?”

Soul felt as if he had been asking the same question far too much in his short life. (He was—what?—sixteen, maybe seventeen. He couldn’t quite remember and he hadn’t celebrated birthdays as a slave. The years didn’t matter, only the days he managed to make it through.) He felt like an owl himself—his feet could fit on a limb and his neck had almost been turned all the way around a few times and he could poop through feathers if he had them, he supposed.

Who had sold him and why? 

Who was his real family and why had they gotten rid of him? 

Who did he used to be? 

Whose life was this, anyway? Why did he remember the piano and other little snippets of life that couldn’t possibly have been his? 

Who was Soul, anyway? Why did he want to guard his name with his life? 

Hell, he had been asking it too much just in the short time he was home… well, been returned here to the beautiful Evans Mansion, if he had ever been a part of this extravagant life to begin with. (He knew he had been—he wasn’t completely stupid! He must have at some point because they had a few pictures of him as a child. Aurora and Wes were both beautiful albinos like him. How many albinos could there be around Death City, after all?) 

Who killed the birds, now and before? 

Who was Medusa afraid of—his father, his mother, or of upsetting Wes and causing his death? 

Who had broken his hands and why? 

Who was Soul Evans really—he felt like a dreamed-up person? 

The only part of himself that Soul could remember was being a slave and some half-remembered agony of his hands being shattered. He didn’t even really remember Wes inking the crest into his back. He just knew Wes had done it and that it was there in his skin. Why was it there anyway? He didn’t remember playing the piano or even learning, not the faintest memory, but he must have because he could now. Skills like that just don’t pop out of the ground like toadstools!

“Whooooo?” the owl cried, its voice growing distant as if flew away. 

Soul asked that question way too much. 

They both did.

He rolled over, burying his face in his pillow and breathing with exaggerated deepness and evenness. Maybe if he just thought about how good it was to be in bed—how comfortable he was, how late it was, how badly he wanted to sleep—maybe then he would fall asleep. 

Outside, the night was strangely silent, hunkered down as if a predator had drawn near. 

Soul was about to sit up and look out the window to see if maybe a wolf had crept into the garden on the hunt, golden eyes gleaming, when he heard his bedroom door creak open slowly. No light streamed in which was strange. Why were the hallway lights off? 

Maybe Soul was asleep, dreaming he was awake trying to get to sleep.

Weird, right?

He continued breathing and forcing himself to relax. It could just be Aurora coming in to say goodnight or Wes coming in to apologize for yelling at Soul earlier or even Dante making his nightly rounds on the house to be certain that everything was shipshape. There was no need to freak out. He wasn’t with Maka where any sound in the night could have been Yuca sneaking in to do her evil or one of her henchmen or some other threat to a girl living alone. He was home in the Evans house and there was an alarm and everything. He was safe.

Footsteps closed the space between the threshold and his bed, hesitating. It must be Wes, Soul decided, unsure if he was awake or asleep and afraid to wake him. Soul was about to sit up and call out to his brother, smile a little even despite his jagged teeth because his family didn’t care. 

But something cold and sharp pressed into the small of his back. It slithered through his sheets and his shirt and he felt the cold metal on his flesh. Goose bumps prickled over him from head to toe and he forced himself not to give away that he was awake just yet. 

Someone had gotten into the house!

Soul tightened his hands in the sheets. The knife slid up his back, but it wasn’t poking through the sheets anymore. It was just there, tracing a path up his back like a perverted finger exploring his body. At the base of his neck, the knife poked through again and was icy-cold on his flesh there. Soul clenched his jaw.

What did this person want? Maybe they had killed the birds!

Maybe it was Medusa?! And she had been telling him all those things to throw him off, to trick him!

Soul’s heart began to hammer inside the cage of his chest. He forced himself to breathe calmly and slowly, like a person asleep. It was nearly impossible, but he managed not to alert this person that he was awake as the knife went back down his back and upwards to his neck again. It traced a cold path.

“It’ll be harder… than killing the babies…” 

Soul didn’t recognize the voice as it spoke in the dark. It was wheezy and whispery, thin and small. It didn’t belong to anyone in his family. Had one of Yuca’s henchmen followed him here, not content with getting Maka’s fake baby, and wanted to destroy him too?! Soul was too busy thinking about all these troubling possibilities that he didn’t even notice the knife was gone until he heard his bedroom door bang shut loudly. 

He sat bolt upright in his bed, panting, and tore his eyes to the door. He lunged to his feet, ran to the door, yanked it open, and hurled himself into the hall carelessly.

Aurora let out a startled scream and her songbird fluttered on her head. “Soul?! Is something the matter?!”

“Who just came out of my room?” he half-shouted at her, wild with panic. He had to protect his family!

“No one, sweetheart, you’re alone in there.” Aurora stared at him, blood-colored eyes shining in the darkness of the hallway. Why were the lights still off? 

“No!” Soul protested. “Someone was in my room! They put a knife to me! Look!” He stretched his shirt across his back, revealing the two rips where the knife had poked through the fabric. His skin was even broken, oozing a few drops of blood. “Someone’s in the house!”

“No one’s in the house, Soul,” Aurora said and took his shoulders gently. 

“But—!”

She led him back to his bedroom and sat him down on the rumpled bed. “Listen, Soul, this is a very old house. It has a lot of ghosts. Maybe something visited you, but there isn’t an intruder in the house. The alarm would have gone off.”

“Ghosts can’t hurt you,” Soul protested.

Aurora blinked. She looked startled. “Can you be certain?”

Soul remembered Jacqueline-Kim, the little girl he had met on the grounds of the Denbigh Asylum, but that was the only ghost he had ever met. He supposed Aurora was right. “No,” he murmured and lowered his head.

Aurora patted his shoulder. “See now, it’s alright,” she breathed. Then, she cradled him against her breasts and stroked his silvery hair until Soul was very sleepy. She laid him back against the pillows and pulled the covers up over his legs since it was a warm night. She kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, Soul, sweetheart,” she murmured and turned to leave his bedroom. 

“Mom?” Soul called faintly.

She stopped in the threshold. “Yes, sweetheart?”

If he hadn’t been half-asleep, he would never have dared ask her. “How many babies did you have?”

Aurora recoiled as if he had struck her and his words were like daggers on the wounds in her heart. Those six little words going into six terrible wounds deep inside her chest. She sucked in a deep breath and forced out the answer because she owed it to one of her two surviving children. “Including you and Wes, eight,” she whispered. “Six of my babies died, Soul.”

Even half-asleep and in the dark when he couldn’t see her tears, he was still such a sensitive and gentle child. “I’m sorry,” Soul whispered. His voice was like music to Aurora’s broken heart, soothing the hurt it had caused. “I’ll pray for them…”

“I’d like that,” Aurora murmured through her tears and closed the door softly behind herself. “They’d like that…”

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review!


	45. The Forgiveness of Soul Evans

I hardly have any time to write and I may have forgotten where this story was going. I’m going to have to smooth out my mess. Wish me luck with everything, including finding my head back and moving across the country! (Although I’m already in Arizona so just wish me luck unpacking!)

X X X

Soul woke feeling groggy and still exhausted. It was as if he hadn’t slept a wink the night before, but he knew he had. A dull grey morning light streamed in through the windows of his bedroom. It was going to be a heavy rainy day, wet and dreary. It was never the best thing to wake up to, even on a good morning, and Soul felt as if he had already woken on the wrong side of the bed. Soul groaned and sat up, rubbing his red eyes with the heels of his hands. Then, he dragged himself out of his warm bed and into a hot shower, hoping it would revive him. All it revived were the little stinging cuts on his back and then everything rushed back to him in a blur.

The intruder in his bedroom! 

The ghosts of this house! 

Aurora’s six dead babies! 

The dead white birds!

His broken hands!

Smiling Medusa! 

Lurking Yuca! 

Wes’s rage!

Soul quickly tore out of the shower, slipped on the damp tile floor, hurled himself into dry clothes, and raced down to the kitchen where Aurora and Wes were seated to have breakfast with Medusa serving them. Aurora and Medusa looked up when he barreled into the room and skidded on the hardwood floor on his bare feet, but Medusa went quickly back to her cooking and Wes didn’t even glance up from his plate of scrambled eggs and toast.

“Soul,” Aurora said lightly as she buttered her English muffin. “Sweetheart, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Soul panted for breath a moment, but he suddenly had no idea what he was going to say. Aurora had told him just the night before that no one could possibly have been in his bedroom, poking into him with that cold knife, which meant it was the locked room mystery again. 

Someone in this house had been killing Aurora’s white songbirds.

Someone in this house had pressed into his back with a knife in the dark.

Before all that, someone had shattered his hands when he was a child.

Who though? 

Who?!

Soul was the owl again, crying out in the dark night.

“Soul?” Aurora repeated, laying down her knife silently beside the muffin on her lovely china plate. Her silver hair flopped in her crimson eyes, shadowing them and the rest of her expression, but Soul knew she was truly concerned for him. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? What is it?”

“N-no,” Soul forced out finally. “It’s nothing.” 

“Are you sure, honey? Do you feel sick, maybe?”

“No, I’m fine,” Soul continued. “I just… I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Wes knocked over his cup of tea, sending hot water all over the table and the cup crashing to the floor with the most horrible sound.

Aurora gasped. “Wes, what—?!”

Medusa leaped away from the stove, throwing the towel she had slung over her shoulder onto the spill and stepping delicately over the shattered remains of the china cup. She mopped at the mess on the table, knocking aside salt and pepper shakers and bottles of jam.

Wes remained sitting in his chair, staring at the burns developing on his hand and arm where the scalding tea had splashed him.

“Quick, quick,” Aurora continued. “Help him, Soul!”

Soul grabbed his brother by the back of his chair and dragged it backwards away from where the hot tea was still dripping over the edge of the table and onto Wes’s lap. Medusa passed Soul another towel and he mopped his brother’s burned hand, arm, and lap with it. Aurora helped Medusa barricade the rest of the hot tea on the table with another towel and then they both knelt together to pick up the shards of the broken cup. It was strange seeing his beautiful mother in her silk nightgown kneeling on the floor beside the slave, Medusa, and working so nicely together. Soul saw Medusa lay her battered work-worn hand over Aurora’s soft tender musician’s fingers and Aurora didn’t push her away.

What was the bond between beautiful mistress and household slave?

“Soul, will you take Wes upstairs and help him into some dry clothes?” Aurora asked him, asked the younger son again to take care of the older child. She dumped a handful of shards into the trash and Medusa wrung the towels over the sink. “Soul,” Aurora repeated. “Will you?”

Soul nodded and pulled Wes from the chair. 

Soul looped his strong arm around his brother’s brittle shoulders and towed him up the stairs. In Wes’s bedroom, Soul helped his brother undress from the wet clothes. Well, not so much helped as did completely. Wes had become like a doll, limbs languidly flopping about. Soul shuddered at the state of his brother’s body, being eaten from the inside out by cancer, and he was nothing but skin and bones. The skin was grayish, stretched over the bones like pieces of broken glass, as if Wes was the cup that had shattered in the kitchen. Not without some difficulty, Soul finally got his brother into a t-shirt and some sweatpants. The clothes were too dark and made Wes look like some washed-out dying creature.

“Wes?” Soul whispered and knelt at his brother’s feet beside the bed. “Wes—?”

A sharp blow to the side of his face cut him off. Shocked, Soul fell backwards onto his ass, strewn across the plush cream-colored carpet. Had Wes just… Wes just slapped him?!

“Wes?” Soul whispered and lifted a hand to his battered cheek. He hadn’t been hurt in so long that even a slap from his dying brother had hurt just a little bit. It came as far more of a shock than anything else. “Wes… why would you do that?”

Wes lifted his crimson eyes to Soul’s face and they were like glass marble instead of eyes. They were so empty, not a single shred of anything human inside them anymore. 

“Wes?” Soul whispered. “Why would you do that?”

Wes reached out, his fingers looked like twisted sticks with ragged nails. Again, he slapped his younger brother across the face.

“Why are you hitting me?” Soul whispered. It didn’t hurt—it was just a strange thing to be hit by Wes’s weak ice-cold hands. He felt his cheeks booming red with the slaps despite the frailness of the blows. “Why are you hitting me?”

Wes reached out again, wordlessly.

Soul let his older brother hit him across the face as many times as he wanted, simply remaining kneeling there at his feet. 

Finally, there was a light knock on the door and Aurora’s voice came into the room. “Wes? Soul?” she called sweetly. “How is it going?” Then, she must have heard the sounds of Wes hitting Soul’s face because she threw open the door like a woman possessed and charged into the room.

Wes struck Soul again while his mother was watching and Aurora quickly closed the space between them. She caught Wes’s frail wrist and yanked it back. “Wes! What are you doing?!” she snapped at him. “Soul, are you alright?”

“I don’t understand…” Soul whispered.

Wes’s crimson eyes met Soul’s over their mother’s thin shoulders. Those eyes were inhuman, cold and blank, and Soul looked sharply away.

“Medusa!” Aurora shouted.

The slave appeared as if magicked from thin air. She put her arms around Soul’s shoulders and pulled him to his feet, guiding him quickly from the room. In the background of his beating heart, he heard his mother saying something to Wes, but he couldn’t make out what it was. Medusa half-dragged half-carried him to the kitchen where she put some ice in a small plastic bag, knelt at his feet where he was seated in one kitchen chair, and pressed the ice gently to his reddened face.

“Are you alright, Soul?” Medusa murmured.

He put his hand over the icepack and nodded slowly. “I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“There’re too many strange things in this world to understand everything,” Medusa said softly. 

“Wes hit me. He hit me,” Soul breathed.

Aurora stepped into the kitchen. Something passed silently between Medusa and Aurora and the slave left the room. Aurora came to sit beside Soul at the table and gently took his once-shattered hands in her own soft ones.

“I don’t understand,” Soul whispered to his mother.

She hugged her youngest son against her breasts, kissing his hair and his cheeks, stroking his silvery hair and his back, and tenderly comforting him. 

“Mother, what’s going on?”

“Soul,” Aurora whispered. “Wes has a certain… dislike for you now.”

“Why? What did I do? Is it because I’m a slave?”

“You’re not a slave anymore,” Aurora murmured. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?!” Soul’s voice broke.

She hushed him. “It’s… it’s not even you, Soul.”

He let out a shuddering sob.

Aurora stroked his hair.

“What is it?” Soul whispered.

“It’s your body.”

Soul jerked back from his mother, staring up into his face. He knew about incest and other such horrors, but he didn’t think Wes wanted him for that reason. Wes didn’t want his ugly body, but still he felt his heart begin to race. “What?” he whispered.

Aurora cupped his face. “It’s not that, angel,” she whispered as if reading his dark thoughts. “It’s your healthy body.”

“Healthy?” Soul repeated.

She nodded. “Wes has a certain… jealously for the health in you. He wishes that he was healthy and, sometimes, a strong wish like that can come out as anger…”

“Anger?” Soul thought of the birds, of the knife, of everything. “Then, Wes is…?”

Aurora’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded slowly. “Yes, Wes is the one killing my birds. He does it when he’s very upset, when the cancer hurts him especially badly. It’s something I’ve come to expect and am used to.”

“But—”

“Your brother is very sick, Soul, you know that. I’m sure you also know that he’s not going to live much longer.”

Soul gasped. Yes, he did know that, but it was another thing completely to hear their mother say it out loud. 

Aurora stroked Soul’s red cheeks. “I know, sweet,” she whispered. “Wes is a very sick child… not just in his illness, but in his mind. It does something to a person to know they’re going to die so young. It also twists his heart to have such a young and healthy family. I’m sure Wes wonders what he did to deserve such a fate.”

Soul put his head on his mother’s shoulder, breathing in the flowery scent of her skin and feeling her hair like silk on his bare throat. 

“Can you forgive him, Soul?” Aurora whispered. “For everything he’s done to you?”

Soul leaned back and looked into her face. “Tell me one thing,” he whispered.

She nodded. 

“Did you know it was Wes in my room last night who put the knife to me?”

Aurora lowered her eyes sadly. “I did, sweetheart, but Wes would never hurt you. He’s hurt and he’s angry, but he’s not a cruel boy. He wouldn’t have hurt you.”

Soul didn’t tell her what he had heard Wes whisper in the darkness, ‘It’ll be harder… than killing the babies…’ and Aurora had six dead children. Did she know that Wes might have killed those children, those infants in their cradles? 

Medusa’s words came back to him next. That the person who killed the birds was the same person who had broken his hands. But, if Wes had killed the birds, then did that mean he was the one who had shattered Soul’s bones? 

It just didn’t make sense. 

Soul could understand Wes’s bitterness, but he agreed with his mother—Wes wasn’t cruel. Wes wouldn’t have hurt him.

Then that meant… someone had to be lying about this locked up mystery house. And it must have been Medusa with her strange twisted smile! Medusa was lying to Soul! She must have been the one who had broken his hands so long ago, but why would she have? What did Medusa have against him that she would hurt him so? Then, it all came back to the original sin. Why had Soul been sold as a slave in the first place—because of his broken hands or because of something else entirely?

“Mother?” Soul whispered.

“Yes, sweet?”

But when he looked up into her kind and sweet face, he couldn’t ask her what he so desperately wanted to know. “Nothing, never mind,” Soul murmured.

Aurora stroked his hair gently as if knowing what he had been going to say, but she didn’t offer any answer to his unspoken question. Instead, she tucked his soft head beneath her chin so that her breath stirred his silvery tresses and rubbed his back soothingly. 

“Sweet Soul,” she whispered. “Always so forgiving…”

Soul wondered what else had been done to him that there was to forgive.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	46. Contacting Albarn, Maka

For Ali. Say thank you, everyone. She bullied my butt into posting when I was busy dragging my ass about it.

Short chapter, but the next one will hold some revelations!

X X X

Wes slept the entire day after that and Aurora buried the white bird she found dead in his bedroom. Dante continued working the books in his office and Soul went into the piano room to play. He wanted to confront Medusa, but he didn’t quite dare. If she had hurt him before, he had no doubt that she would do it again. He wasn’t quite afraid, but unnerved. He wished he could talk to someone about this and try to figure out how to proceed, but he was alone in this. He had no one to confide in and, for the first time in a long time, he thought of Maka Albarn and wished she was here with him.

His heart stuttered in his chest.

Soul hurried to his father’s dark office and waited until Dante got off the phone before he asked his desperate lonely question. “Father, you have Maka’s phone number, don’t you?” he asked nervously. For some reason, he had a bad feeling about this.

For a long moment, Dante just stared at him and then opened his thick leather-bound address book to the first section. “Albarn, Maka,” he said as he shuffled through. “Ah, here it is. Now, why do you want to talk to your old master?”

“We’re friends,” Soul murmured and reached out to take the card from Dante’s fingers.

“Uh-huh.” He seized his youngest son’s wrist sharply, squeezing hard.

Soul tried to pull away, but Dante’s grip was like iron.

“Why are you calling her, really? Tell me the truth!” Dante shouted.

Soul dredged up whatever courage lurked in his heart and tried to yank away from his father’s cold hard grip. “She’s my friend!” he repeated as Dante’s fingers dug into the thin soft flesh of his wrist. “I just want to talk to her.”

“Tell the truth!” Dante shouted.

Soul tore away finally, clutched the card to his chest, and raced from the office. He nearly collided with Medusa in the hallway. Her fingers were like shards of ice as she grabbed his upper arms to steady herself.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

But he pulled away from her, too, and raced to the piano room where he tucked himself in the shelter beneath it. In the dimness, he stared at the card. Maka’s number wasn’t on it. It was just a blank card with absolutely nothing written on it. Dante had tricked him. Soul tossed the blank card at the floor angrily and then picked it up again. He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans lest Medusa find it and discover that he was on to her and the things she had done to him.

But first, he needed to talk to Maka.

He needed to know that this was the right thing to do.

He needed to know what to do.

Soul went to his mother’s beautiful study and heard the musical song of her flute long before he even opened the door. She was sitting on her velvet chaise lounge beside her empty bird cage and her beautiful hands were muddy from burying her bird. He waited for a lull in her playing and then she smiled at him.

“Do you need something, Soul?” she asked. 

“Do you have Maka’s number, Mom?” he asked

She nodded. “I do. It’s in my little diary, just in case. Did you ask your father for it?”

Soul cupped his hand over his wrist, happy that no bruise was visible on the pale honeyed flesh. “He didn’t have it,” he lied. 

Aurora nodded. “I’ll give it to you, sweetheart, but you must to something for me. Two things really.”

“Anything.”

“First, I want you to accompany me on the piano while I play my flute.”

Soul nodded, smiling. He had wanted to play with his mother since he had been brought home again, the same way he always played with Wes. Playing together made him feel close again, and wanted, like he deserved to be part of this beautiful family.

“Second, Medusa is going to need help with the groceries tomorrow. Will you go with her? I have to take Wes to the hospital otherwise I’d go myself.”

Soul’s heart skipped a beat, but he nodded. For his mother, to talk to Maka, but Medusa! Even so, he would do anything.

Aurora smiled. “Thank you, precious,” she said. Then, she pulled selected one pillow from the mound behind her, flipped it over, unzipped the back, and pulled a small pretty tome from inside it. She leafed through a few pages and then said, “Do you have a pen and paper?”

Soul took the blank card from his pocket, but he didn’t have a pen. 

Aurora handed him one and read out Maka’s phone number. “There you go,” she said with a smile. “And after dinner, you will play with me?”

Soul nodded.

“Go on then,” she said and tucked her diary back into its hiding place inside the crimson velvet pillow with delicate white embroidery. “Call your friend. There’s not a phone in your bedroom, but you can unplug the one from the library and take that up with you. I’ve been meaning to get the phone out of the library for a while now anyway. Who wants to be disturbed by ringing when they’re reading anyway?” She chuckled delightedly. “Go on then!”

Soul ducked out of her study, smiling to himself and clutching the no-longer-blank card to his chest. He took the antique rotary phone from the library, carried it up to his bedroom, plugged it in, and dialed Maka’s cell phone number. He listened to the ringing with bated breath. 

Finally, there was a breathy exhausted answer. “Hello?”

“Maka?” Soul murmured. His voice was a little croaking sound so he cleared his throat and continued. “Maka, it’s Soul Eater Evans. Do you remember me?”

She made a small breathless sound, not quite a laugh and it sounded more than a little painful. “Soul, of course I remember you. How are you?”

He desperately wanted to say, ‘Oh, I’m alright,’ because she sounded as if she had enough problems of her own but he had called her specifically because he needed help. He needed someone to talk to about his problems. Instead, he murmured, “I need some help, Maka.”

“What’s wrong?” Maka asked. “I thought you’d be happy with your family. That’s why…” She trailed off, letting out a gasp of breath. “What’s happened?”

“There are a lot of… secrets in this house. I just need someone to talk to because I’m not sure what to do now.”

“I’m here for you. Tell me everything,” Maka said kindly.

So Soul did. 

Soul began with how his parents wouldn’t tell him why he had been sold as a slave—saying only that there had been an accident and that some things happened that were out of their control—though Medusa told him it was because his hands were broken and he could no longer play the piano. That reasoning was so shallow though and Soul didn’t think his lovely mother would do that to her son. Then he told her about the death of Aurora’s white songbirds and that she knew Wes was killing them and burying them in the garden. He talked about Medusa’s cryptic smiles and the things she said—that the same person who broke his hands was killing the birds, the way she acted like a close friend to his mother, that Soul had decided she must have been the one who had hurt him, all these strange twisted things. He told her about the knife being pressed into his back in the dark and the bruises his father’s hand had left around his thin wrist. 

His life was spiraling out of his control again.

When he finished, Maka was quiet for a long moment, just thinking about all that he had said. Then, she said finally, “I think you need to talk to your mother or your father and try to find out what the truth is. Honestly, Soul, all this seems to be wild assumptions. You need to know the truth.” 

“But they wouldn’t tell me anything! I asked them!” he protested. “It’s like some big secret. This house is full of secrets.”

Maka let out a sigh. “I don’t know, Soul. Maybe you need to find some records, something that’s written down. Maybe the bill of sale for when you were sold, doctor’s files about your hands or maybe an old x-ray of them, family journals, maybe even the lyrics to songs. If they won’t tell you, you’ll have to find out some other way.”

Soul saw his mother putting her diary back into the pillow on her chaise lounge and he knew where he could find out everything that had happened.

“Soul?” Maka’s voice came as if from a distance.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Thank you, Maka. That was what I needed to hear. So, how have you been?”

She barked a hollow laugh. “I have to wear a fat suit just in case Yuca spies on me and discovers I’m not really pregnant. And it’s so hot and the suit just makes me hotter. It’s awful!”

Soul chuckled. 

“Of course, it’s funny to everyone, but I feel like that heavy beast is going to drive me into the ground. I couldn’t imagine being pregnant for real!”

Aurora knocked on his bedroom door. “Soul,” she called. “Dinner’s ready!”

“Okay,” he called to his mother. Then, to Maka, he said, “I have to go.”

“It was great hearing from you Soul,” Maka said and there was something sad in her voice. “Goodbye.”

“Bye!”

Then, Soul met his mother’s smiling face in the hallway and felt a stab of horror at what he planned to do later on in the dark of night. He planned to steal into her private study and read her precious secret diary so he could find out what had happened to him. He was going to betray her trust completely and he still smiled in her beautiful face. Soul was the most perfect and incredible liar and he realized that maybe he had deserved all the hell he had been through.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	47. The Diary of Aurora Evans

I feel like this is Stolen Lives, everything was revealed in Namine’s diary there and everything is brought to light in Aurora’s diary here. (Well, maybe not everything, but a good deal of it.) And man is this ever a long chapter!

I can’t get over how much everyone misses Maka. I figured you’d all be happy to just have Soul on the screen, but it seems I was wrong. (For the first time EVER! Kidding… I’m wrong a lot.) Anyway, this is Soul’s arc so Maka’s kind of forgotten. You’ll just have to wait for her return.

X X X

Soul waited until he was certain the rest of the house was asleep before sneaking out of his bed like a criminal and going down to his mother’s beautiful study. Her empty birdcage was haunting in the silvery moonlight and Soul wished there were birds inside it to keep him company while he spied into his mother’s private heart. Then again, he didn’t want any witnesses to his greatest crime. He rifled through the mounds of pillows on her velvet chaise lounge until he found the one with her diary inside it. He hunkered down behind the lounge like the criminal child he was and opened the diary with much shame to the first page and the first entry.

Her handwriting was neat and loopy and her I’s were dotted with hearts. Each entry was undated as if she didn’t care to know when everything had happened, as if it didn’t matter to her, or maybe she just didn’t want to see how much time had passed since things had happened. It was nice to think that happy things had only happened the day before and that bad things could be as far away as she wanted them to be. Each entry started with some form of “Dear Aurora” as if she was writing letters to herself, which—Soul supposed—in a way, she was. So, Soul began reading her first entry with no idea what or when he was getting into his mother’s life.

_**My Dear Aurora,** _

_I’m so giddy!_

_I’ve never thought myself the type of person to keep a diary and write down all manner of frivolous things like a regular girl. I didn’t even have one as a child yet here I am. I think it’s Dante’s influence. He’s so old-fashioned that it just makes me feel strange to wear jeans around him. His mother even gave me an old-fashioned gown with the layers of silk and lace and an old-gold broach. I feel so beautiful among these people like I never have before._

_I confess, I have always felt out of place being an albino with my silver hair and blood-red eyes. I feel like everyone always looks at me strangely and watches me from the corner of their eyes as if I might do something strange. But I don’t feel that way with Dante even though he’s so big and dark. He makes me feel like a fairytale princess whose colors have been stolen from her and he is the knight working as hard as he can to get them back._

_I feel so beautiful and loved and accepted as I haven’t since my mother left._

_Yours forever._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_Dante and I are to be married. I’m far too excited to write now so I will tell you more tomorrow. Happy, happy, happy, happy!_

_**My Dearest Self!** _

_Our ceremony was the most magical thing ever! The chapel was all full of bouquets of lilies, lilacs, pink and red roses, tulips of every color, and even baby’s breath. There was even an organist to play the bridal march for me. Dante’s mother made me—made with her own two hands—a wedding gown and embroidered the veil, too. It was the happiest day of my life!_

_And then our wedding night… though I am a gentleman (gentlewoman) at heart and do not kiss and tell._

_**My Dear,** _

_Today, while out riding horses, Dante and I discovered the most beautiful house in the woods. It’s tumbling down and all its windows have been boarded up yet I loved it on sight. I quickly jumped down from my horse and ran through the high grass to peer through the square of dusty glass on the front door. This place… I wish I could live here. I would make it my castle for eternity!_

_Later, while we are lying in bed, Dante asked me why the sight of that ruined house excited me so much. And that’s just the way he said it. Dante is so old-fashioned, even in the way he speaks. I fear it’s rubbing off on me—see?!_

_I told him all about how much I love the house and that I could have lived there forever and made it my castle world! I don’t know why, but that house just called out to me. Maybe it was the little graveyard in the edge of the woods, all overgrown with thistles and briars and weeds. The dead abandoned relatives were speaking to me because I had never had a family of my own to cherish or bury. I had been alone for so long, it seemed, until Dante found me._

_When my mother just left, I never even got to bury her. She made a new family—without me! She just threw me away, left me behind, deserted me just like I was some ruined puppy in a cardboard box on the side of the road. Unwanted!_

_Dante just stared at me while I told him this and then gave me a little kiss on the lips like the sweet man he was. Then, we shared some passion, but I won’t tell you about that._

_Ever yours._

_**Dearer Aurora,** _

_You will never guess what’s happening to me!_

_ALL MY DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE!_

_As a wedding gift—or so he says—Dante bought that gorgeous ruined house all for me. For us, really. We’ll start fixing it up and we’ll live there. It’ll be the place where we raise our children together and where we’ll bury his parents. Oh, another miraculous occurrence in my wonderful life!_

_I am pregnant with our first child!_

_**My Dear Self,** _

_Dante will hardly let me work in my ‘delicate state’ as he calls it, but I sneak about doing things when he wasn’t looking. I scrubbed the mildew out of the giant claw-footed bathtub and painted the eaves of the porch. I’ve been doing a lot of painting lately because it’s all Dante will willingly let me do. Painting isn’t much of a strain for a fruitful woman. He calls me ‘his delicate and wonderful fruit maiden’ now._

_We’ve been talking names lately, too._

_If we have an albino boy, we’ve decided to name him Wesley or Wes for short. If we have an albino girl, I want to name her Flora or Phoebe. If we don’t have an albino child, I was thinking Tristan or Isolde, but Dante likes Richard and Jemma. All of them wonderful beautiful names._

_It reminds me of a line from a song in that Broadway Musical “Cats” when they’re talking about the naming of cats. ‘All of them sensible everyday names…’ I don’t think any of the names we chose are sensible or everyday names. I think we are going to be brilliant parents!_

_**Dear Musical Flutist, Aurora,** _

_I realize now that this is my first time talking about our music. Dante plays the saxophone which I find weirdly brutish for such a gentle and old-fashioned man. He’s too kind to play such a loud weapon of the arts. He should play something more gentle and sweet, like my flute or maybe the piano._

_Speaking of my flute, it’s such a beat-up old piece of junk that my father left behind for me. As much as I want to get a new and beautiful instrument to match Dante’s flame-bronze monster, I can’t bear to get rid of the only thing I have from my father. It’s the only thing resembling family that I have._

_Until later._

_**My Incredibly Pregnant Aurora,** _

_Being pregnant was hard and I realize now that maybe my body is a little too young. I’ve had really bad morning sickness and I need to rest a lot to keep my strength up. I feel fat and I’m tired all the time. I know I’ve been taking things out on Dante, but I can’t seem to help it. I’m sorry, my love._

_Be a little nicer, Aurora._

_**Dear Self,** _

_I’ve been trying to be nicer to Dante. I cooked us a lovely dinner tonight, but I had to go to bed early. My stomach hurts very badly, but I’m sure it’s just cramps._

_**Oh Baby,** _

_I should have gone to the hospital last night. It was far more than just a cramp. I woke up covered in blood._

_Miscarriage, the doctor says._

_Either way, I lost the baby._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_Dante burned the bloodied sheets and we buried the ashes in the little graveyard in the back of the overgrown garden. Then, Dante planted a box hedge to hide the view of it from the house. I insisted that he plant more and wall off that graveyard like in that story “The Secret Garden.” It’s now my secret graveyard for my poor dead baby._

_**My Dearest Aurora,** _

_I hadn’t been in the mood to write much. I’ve just been working on the house, non-stop, to forget all the bad things about the lost baby, but I’m better now. (Now that it’s over, I just want to hold her. I’d give up all the world to see that little piece of Heaven looking back at me—Skillet. I love and hate that song, precious, but I feel that it fits me.) Dante and I have decided to try again and we’ve managed to conceive another child. This time, I’m going to go to the doctor’s once a week and always if I feel any sort of strange pain._

_I will not lose this baby! I will not!_

_**Dear Me,** _

_Success!_

_I feel the baby kicking inside me even as I write this. I am in my last month now, full and swollen like the moon. Even if any complications were to arise, the baby would still be saved. I’m in the home stretch and we have decided to name him Wes, regardless of albino or not. Just Wes…_

_Success!_

_**Dearest Wonderful and Delicate Fruit Maiden,** _

_Wes is such a beautiful baby. He’s an albino just like me with silver hair rather than pure white and beautiful blood-red eyes. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I almost didn’t want to let Dante hold him. I just wanted to keep him all to myself. My most precious boy…_

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_Today, little Wes has been very sick. We’re taking him to the doctor’s tomorrow._

_But the house is finished now. It’s so beautiful, just like Wes._

_**Dear,** _

_My Wes has leukemia._

_What am I going to do? What bad thing have I done that my first baby died and my second is so sick? What did I do to deserve this?_

_**Dearest Aurora,** _

_They have all kinds of things that they can use to make Wes better and Dante is so rich that I have no doubt that we can afford the best treatment ever for our poor little child. Though it saddens me, Dante’s mother died this afternoon. Dante has told me to think of it as one life leaving so room can be made in this world for another. He thinks of it as a sign that Wes is going to live, but I don’t know what to think._

_**Dear Self,** _

_Some time has passed since I last wrote, but I’ve been rather busy with all the doctor’s appointments and treatments for my poor baby. I hope you can forgive me because I had to wipe off a layer of dust before I could even open this book._

_I have some good news to report in the midst of some of this sadness. I am pregnant again. I will not lose another child! I am taking all sorts of vitamins, no red M &Ms, and I don’t stand in front of the microwave. I don’t even eat ice cream, just frozen yoghurt. I will let no harm come to this precious babe. _

_I have decided to name this child Soul._

_Forever._

_**My Dear,** _

_Soul is even more beautiful than Wes and he came out screaming and I knew then that no matter what this boy goes through he will live through it all. My Soul is a survivor, a fighter, strong. Both of our souls are and nothing crushes us!_

_No matter what!_

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_It’s Wes’s second birthday and Soul is eleven months old. It was the most amazing party even though neither of my boys have any friends yet. My Soul is too young and Wes is too weak and sick to play very much. Mostly, they sit in the piano room with me. Soul is infatuated with the piano. He tries so hard to get up onto the bench and pound away at the ivory, but I don’t want him to fall and my arms are always so full of Wes. Maybe he could try some lessons to scratch his itch._

_**My Dearest Fruit Maiden,** _

_I am pregnant again! Isn’t it wonderful? Maybe a little sister for my sweet Wes and Soul._

_**My Dearest,** _

_I arranged for a tutor to come to the house and give Soul lessons at the piano. When Wes found out, he screamed and cried with more energy and vigor than I ever thought possible. And I set my devious mind to thinking about what kind of instrument my sweet Wes could play? Surely not the loud and crushing piano like my Soul or the sax like Dante and the flute is far too delicate for him. Wes needs something to let his emotions out._

_Oh, I caught him pinching his little brother yesterday, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Maybe Wes was just upset about the lessons._

_I’m not sure._

_It’s a little dark outside today. I think there’ll be rain later…_

_**Aurora,** _

_Dante is concerned about Wes and his anger towards Soul. I believe it is because Soul is allowed to run and play while he is trapped in the house under my watchful eye. If Soul falls down, I can put a Band-Aid on him and move on, but if Wes gets hurt, we’ll have to go to the hospital._

_His leukemia…_

_But I'm too busy to worry much about Wes. I have a third baby, a sweet little girl who I have named Celeste despite myself, now and Wes’s sickness on top of it all. Soul is the only child I can leave on his own either at the piano or out in the garden. I’ve been noticing little bruises on his arms and back though._

_Maybe Wes’s anger does give me cause for concern. I don’t want him to hurt Soul._

_**Dear Me,** _

_Dante went into town today and returned with a slave-woman, Medusa with stringy golden hair. She’s about my age and her belly is round with the aftereffects of pregnancy, her womb still swollen on the inside of her body. She recently had a baby, but she denies it. I sense that this is as painful for her as thinking about my miscarriage is for me. I won’t pester her about it anymore._

_**Aurora,** _

_Medusa is a great help to me. She takes care of Soul and Celeste and leaves Wes in my hands. It’s perfect as well because she is lactating and she can act as a wet nurse. She’s everything I could have asked for in a friend and servant, but I don’t like the way she watches Wes. She has this wry little smile yet her eyes are dark with concern._

_When I asked her if Wes had been doing anything to Soul, she only shook her lowered head._

_But there was a welt on Soul’s back that night and splinters under his skin. It was as if someone had hit him with a large heavy branch and broke it on his spine. My poor sweet Soul…_

_Forever yours._

_**NO!** _

_Celeste is dead._

_I don’t understand it._

_What is happening?_

_Why did I lose two babies?_

_**Dear Hopeless Me,** _

_Little Soul is such a comfort to me. Last night he came into my bedroom and Dante was already deeply asleep. He crawled into my lap and cuddled against my breasts and hummed a strange little tune that I had heard him practicing on the piano earlier._

_He asked me why I was sad. Little Celeste was in heaven now, in a better place, just like where Daddy said Wes would be going because of his sickness. Luke-Mia, he forced out on his little twisted tongue._

_I felt as if I had been punched in the gut. Did Dante really feel that Wes was going to die?_

_I carried Soul to his bedroom and tucked him in. My angel, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but I saw that Wes was lying awake in his own bed. His red eyes shone in the darkness like twin candles, blood-red. I went over to kiss him, too, and Wes clung to me hard. He wouldn’t let me go._

_Did he know that his father thought he was going to die?_

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_I decided that Wes would play the violin. It was perfect for him. Music like a cry yet small and delicate enough as not to overpower him and his weakness. It was perfect! See, I am clever!_

_**Dearest Aurora,** _

_My period is late and I took a pregnancy test. I’m pregnant again, but I can’t keep it. My babies keep dying. I don’t want to go through that pain again. I’ve decided to have an abortion and I’m going to keep it a secret from Dante. I’ll go to the clinic when I take Wes to the hospital for his treatment and leave Soul home with Medusa. Surely, he’ll miss the trip into the city but it’s for the best._

_I can’t bear another dead child._

_So, by my own hand, I will have a third dead baby._

_I tell myself that it’s better this way, but I am Skillet’s song Lucy again._

_**My Dear,** _

_I'm going to stay off sex for a while._

_That abortion was the worst thing I had ever gone through. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the baby. I have to treat it like a death, I realized, even if I did it by my own choice. Beside little Celeste and the first bloody miscarriage, I planted a small rose bush for my aborted child._

_It was another death._

_Love, Aurora_

_**My Dearest Self,** _

_It’s Soul’s fourth birthday. By now, he is the most remarkable piano player you ever did see. Dante and I have been talking about having him perform with us. When Wes overheard that, he grew insanely jealous and went after Soul with a vengeance. He actually punched his little brother in the face! All because we wanted Soul to perform with us._

_Why is Wes so angry?_

_Is it just because Soul is healthy and he is not?_

_No, there has to be more too it._

_Dante and I both scolded Wes fiercely and locked him in his bedroom to think about what he has done._

_**Dear,** _

_Someone killed my white songbirds. All of them._

_**Dearest,** _

_Medusa came to me while I was playing the flute after Soul and Wes had been put down for naps. She told me that she had seen Wes in my study and that she had seen him kill the birds. He had wrung their necks. Then, his eyes had filled with tears and he had gone quickly outside to bury the bodies in the garden. It was clear he was sorry, Medusa explained, and she thought best not to punish him. He was only a child after all and didn’t know the true difference between dead and alive._

_I thought that maybe he did and that was why he was so angry._

_A child shouldn’t know death yet and especially shouldn’t feel the Reaper nipping at his heels._

_Either way, I didn’t punish Wes about the birds, but I did talk to him about what he had done. We said a little prayer over the birds in the garden. Soul clutched my hand at my hip and it was clear he didn’t quite understand what had happened and I didn’t want to explain it to him._

_**Dear Fruit Maiden,** _

_I am pregnant again. This babe I will bring into the world._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_It isn’t fair! No sooner had I brought my healthy baby boy home than I found him dead in his cradle the next morning. It seemed that the pillow had fallen over his face and the newborn had suffocated. I don’t understand it! Why do these bad things keep happening to my children?!_

_A fourth death and Wes so sick._

_Maybe Soul is the only baby I have who is meant to live._

_**My Dearest,** _

_I took Soul to the park today, just the two of us, and he asked if he could play the piano while I play the flute. I think he truly wants to perform with us, as a family—Dante, myself, Wes, and him. And I couldn’t deny that sweet little face anything in the world._

_I said yes._

_**My Love,** _

_Soul and I played together and it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I saw Wes standing at the threshold while we played, but Soul did not. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but the next morning I found a gigantic bruise on Soul’s beautiful face and round ones on his chest. When I asked him what had happened, he told me that Wes had knelt on his chest and hurt his face. That was all he would say and then I saw Wes in the doorway again._

_My child, it’s time we had a talk._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_I talked to Wes about what he had done to Soul, explaining to him that it was not okay for him to hurt his baby brother like that. He was the older child and he was supposed to protect Soul, not hurt him! Wes cried in my arms, but he didn’t apologize or show any sorrow whatsoever. He only told me that he wished he could be Soul. He wanted to run and play outside. He wanted to be healthy and stop going to the hospital. I understood why Wes was hurting so and I hugged him tightly._

_My poor baby…_

_Knowing about my other dead babes probably didn’t make it any easier on him. In truth, I wondered also why Soul was the only child I had who was so strong and healthy while all the others died. What about Soul was so different, so much stronger?_

_**My Dearest Aurora,** _

_We had our first concert as a family. Everyone was amazed by the skills of my boys, Dante included. I had never seen Wes so happy and Soul was practically glowing with life and joy. I felt happiness deep inside as I hadn’t in such a long time, since the death of my very first child._

_Forever yours._

_**Dear,** _

_I woke to screaming and found the greatest horror waiting for me. It seemed Soul had gotten up early to practice the piano and the fall of the keys had come down and crushed his hands. There was blood everywhere and the bones were sticking out of his cream-colored flesh. I think I might have screamed along with him._

_Dante tore into the piano room and swept Soul up in his arms. He got Wes under the other and shouted for me to follow him. We went to the hospital where they already knew us by name._

_Soul’s hands… The bones were cracked clean in half as if the fall had chopped his hands. Some incredible force it had taken to do that to my precious boy. The doctor’s said that he would never play the piano again. Soul’s dreams were over now._

_**Dearest,** _

_Dante told me that he saw Wes smile._

_Smile…_

_Smile as I fed Soul because his hands were so broken that he could do nothing for himself._

_Was Wes… happy… about what had happened to his brother?_

_Was it really an accident that had happened to Soul?_

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_Soul came to me tonight while I was asleep and begged me to get up. There was blood on his face and his hands were bandaged so thickly. He looked so hurt, so shattered, and so… he was afraid. “Mom,” he whispered, “Please, don’t let Wes hurt me anymore.”_

_I cradled him tightly and looked at Dante’s slumbering form._

_What could I do?_

_Wes was going to die, but I suddenly had the feeling that if I didn’t do something, Soul would be dead long before Wes. I had the feeling that Wes would kill Soul, slaughter him in his bed, and I knew Wes had crushed Soul’s hands beneath the piano fall._

_I wondered about my many dead babies… three of them dead in their cradles…_

_Had Wes killed them?_

_What was wrong with my child?_

_**Dear Me,** _

_Medusa came to me and said that Wes had been drawing pictures of Soul dead. I knew then that I had to do something and to make things worse, I was pregnant again._

_**Dearest,** _

_I aborted that baby and I sold my precious Soul into slavery. It was the only thing I could think to do to protect him on such short notice. Soul had to get out of the house before Wes killed him and I couldn’t let anyone ask questions. So, I paid for his first family to be kind and to let his hands heal and then… Soul was gone from my sight._

_Forever._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_I haven’t been in the mood to write for years. I became pregnant again and had to abort another child._

_Six._

_Six dead babies._

_It feels so wrong to kill my babies._

_Sickeningly, Wes doesn’t remember any of what he did to his brother. He actually desperately misses Soul and hates me for sending him away. What is wrong with him? Did he ever really know what he was doing? But if he didn’t, it’d be even harder to try to stop him._

_I have only one child now._

_One lost beyond my sight._

_And six poor dead babies._

_**My Dearest,** _

_Wes is obsessed with finding Soul before he dies. Maybe he wants to apologize or maybe he wants to find Soul for me. Either way, I know there’s no way we will ever be able to find him. He’s just one slave among thousands. Soul is lost to us now._

_I won’t be writing anymore._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_I lied._

_We have found Soul! A mysterious woman told us where to find him, but Wes has been hiding this from us. He planned to sneak out and get Soul as if we would stop him. He must really not remember the things he had done to Soul and that I had to send Soul away for both their protection. Wes would have been arrested if they knew what he was doing to Soul—abusing him—and so would Dante and I, surely so I couldn’t let it be found out what had happened to Soul. Yet I needed to protect him. I did the best I could under the circumstances._

_I worry what will happen if we bring him back here, back to Wes._

_Will Wes hurt him again?_

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_God, Soul looks horrible. He’s as thin as a bean pole and his fingers are all twisted from that long-ago break. They must not have healed as well as I hoped. He’s covered in scars, in these big fruitlike wounds and jagged rips and horrible scars. He looks like he’s been through hell and barely made it back. Maybe it would have been better to keep him here. Surely what he suffered at the hands of others would have been harder to bear than Wes’s small angers._

_But then I think of his bloody shattered hands and his screaming that night and Wes smiling at the door and I know I did the right thing. If Soul had stayed, he would have died. I know this in the bottom of my broken heart._

_Then, I would have seven dead children._

_What did I do to deserve this? What did Soul do to deserve this? Why is Wes doing this to us?_

_I can’t talk to Dante about it. He insists we must only bear it for a little longer because Wes is going to die anyway. What good would it do?_

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_Soul is adjusting well, it seems, and Wes is acting like a beautiful brother to him. This was the life I always wanted—happy, but something is wrong beneath the surface. My songbirds are disappearing and I know why. I know Wes is killing them again._

_Medusa came to me, worried, but I had no words to comfort her. I told her only to watch over Soul closely and watch Wes even closer._

_**Dear Aurora,** _

_Soul says someone came into his room last night and put a knife to his back and he even has cuts there. Wes… why are you doing this again? Why do you hate everyone around you? What is wrong with you, my child?_

_I think… I need to find some way to tell Soul everything that happened. He needs to know so he can protect himself._

_Or maybe he could go stay with his lovely master, Maka Albarn, until Wes id dead and buried. Then, he would be safe._

_Right now, I see Soul as a child again and I know he is wordlessly taking everything Wes throws at him. Medusa came screaming for me when she heard the sound of slaps in Wes’s room yesterday and, sure enough, Wes was hitting Soul in the face and Soul was just taking it wordlessly. I could tell the hits didn’t hurt him so much as being hit by his precious brother hurt him. He doesn’t understand how Wes could hate him yet had searched so hard for him._

_I don’t either. Why would Wes search for him so hard and then hurt him? It doesn’t make sense._

_I need to tell Soul, but I don’t want to. I wish my family could be happy together, for once. Why is this happening?_

_Forever Yours._

Soul closed his mother’s small diary and let out a shuddering breath. Outside, a night bird screamed and the pale silvery moonlight stretched across the plush carpet like searching fingers. Silently, Soul stowed the little tome back into its pillow-hiding-place. He felt horrible for invading her privacy but now he knew the truth.

Wes was the one who had broken his hands and worse! Wes! 

But why?

Why did Wes hate him so? Just because he was healthy?

What?

“Did you find out everything you wanted to know?” the voice rang out from the darkness and Soul’s heart jumped into his throat.

X X X

The song “Lucy” is property of Skillet.

Questions, comments, concerns? 

*dun dun dun*


	48. Medusa, the Protector of Children

Short chapter, filler-ish.

I really need to rein it in. I have way to many stories posted, but I was trolling to make my life complicated again. I just can’t deal with not having chaos so I posted nine million stories. This one is still going to be my main one though. Never fear!

X X X

“Well, did you find everything you wanted?” Dante’s voice rang cold and sharp through the dimness of Aurora’s study. Soul nearly slid out of his skin and whirled to face his fearsome father. Dante was looming in the doorway, arms crossed over his broad chest and flinty eyes stone-hard. He looked like he wanted to strangle one of his only surviving children. “Answer me, Soul Evans!” he snapped.

Soul kept the chaise lounge between himself and his father. “I had to know,” he said by way of explanation. “You don’t understand! I thought we were in danger.”

“We aren’t in danger. You are in danger,” Dante said flatly. 

Soul shuddered, stepping backwards from him.

“But not for much longer…”

“You really think Wes will be dead soon?”

Dante let out a long breath and stepped into the room. For each step he took forward, Soul took one back. The circle of bruises on his wrist was dark and a painful reminder of what his father’s grip could do to his thin limbs. Finally, the moonlight played across his father’s dark face and Soul saw the fragile tender expression there.

“Wes has been destroying this family. He wants Aurora all to himself and he’s doing everything he can to eliminate what he considers the competition,” Dante explained. “He smothered babies in their cribs. He shattered your hands. He even pits Aurora and I against each other. He’s a snake in the grass.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“He’s my brother. He’s your son.”

“So?”

“Shouldn’t you have love for… family… no matter what?”

Dante stared at Soul. “Unconditional love,” he said softly. “You are definitely Aurora’s son.”

Then, he stretched out his big hands and held them there, just waiting for something though Soul was unsure what. Finally, he laid his small white hands over his father’s massive ones and Dante wrapped his fingers over Soul’s bruised wrist. His thumbs stroked gently over the ridges and bones, over the thin zipper-like scars of the surgeries that straightened and replaced Soul’s shattered bones, and the scars from being a slave. His son’s hands were so small and frail, thin and fragile, yet they had worked harder than Dante’s ever had.

“I’m sorry, my son,” Dante whispered.

“Why?”

“I hurt you when I was only angry with Wes.”

“You shouldn’t be angry with Wes, Dad.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s your son.”

“He hurt you so badly. It’s his fault that we sold you as a slave. Don’t you care?”

Soul licked his lips. “I do… but not enough. He’s my brother.”

“Ah,” Dante murmured and pulled his hands out of Soul’s with one final brush across this youngest son’s damaged knuckles. Then, without another word, he turned and left Aurora’s parlor and left Soul alone with his new thoughts. 

…

Soul was almost asleep when his bedroom door creaked open. Fearing it was Wes again, come to try to kill him in his sleep, he sat bolt upright as if he had been yanked by a string. But it was only Medusa, creeping silently into the room like a misplaced spirit.

“Medusa?” Soul whispered.

She nodded, golden hair catching the faint light from the hall.

“What’s wrong?”

She approached the bed and sat down beside him. The bed frame creaked mysteriously. “Young master,” she began.

“Soul,” he interrupted habitually.

Medusa smiled faintly and nodded. “Yes, Soul, I assume you know everything now,” she continued. “You know all about Wes. I could tell by the way you jolted up. When I’ve checked on you before, you’ve just kept on sleeping.”

“You’ve checked on me before?”

She nodded. “Every night and several times each night…”

“Why?”

“Just in case…”

“In case Wes had come in and…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “…hurt me,” he said instead.

Medusa nodded and tightened her fingers into small fists. 

“Why?” he murmured.

“Because… I’ve failed children before…”

“My mother’s other babies?” Soul whispered.

She shook her head.

“Then what child?”

Medusa shook her head again. “You wouldn’t know…”

Soul touched her shoulder, feeling her body trembling slightly. “Please, Medusa, talk to me.”

She wet her lips. “My child, my baby boy,” she whispered.

“What happened?”

“He was taken from me.”

“How?”

She sniffled. “I’m a slave,” she said by way of explanation and didn’t continue until Soul prompted her. “My master before your wonderful mother had no heart. When I became pregnant,” her voice cracked and Soul knew exactly how she had become pregnant, “my master sold my baby. He insisted he needed the money so he sold my baby boy. I barely got to hold him before he was taken from my arms. Then, I went back into the fields to work.”

“Medusa—”

“And then all Aurora’s poor dead babies, her first miscarriage, her abortions, sweet Celeste dead in her cradle and her little brother after that dead in the crib,” Medusa whispered. “And then when Wes crushed your hands in the piano fall. I should have been watching closer. I should have protected you. I should have protected this entire family.”

“You couldn’t have stopped Wes. I think he would have found some way. It’s not your fault, Medusa,” Soul murmured.

“But—”

“Besides, I came back to my family after being a slave. There’s hope for you, Medusa. You’ll see your son again.”

A wistful expression crossed her gold-green eyes. “Yes, my sweetheart… 

Soul smiled faintly.

“My Chrona… I’d love to stroke his violet hair again.”

Soul’s heart leaped up into his throat. “Chrona?!” he choked out.

Her eyes drilled into his face. “What do you know?” she demanded.

“I know where Chrona is,” Soul forced out quickly because Medusa looked prepared to throttle the information out of him. “My friend Maka Albarn is actually working to get him back. Her aunt has stolen him for ransom and won’t let him go until Maka trades him for her child.”

Medusa gasped. “Another lost baby—”

Soul shook his head. “No, she’s only pretending to be pregnant.”

“Then my Chrona!”

“No!” Soul said quickly. “They’re going to kill Yuca when she arrives to make the trade for Chrona.”

“Kill her?”

“Yuca is dangerous.”

“But she only wants a baby…” Medusa whispered, lowering her eyes. She had thought many times about how far she would have gone to see her Chrona again… She would have done anything. It seemed that this woman was the same as she was.

“She had Maka raped to try to make her pregnant so she could have a baby for her.”

Medusa sucked in a breath. Then again, maybe she wasn’t. She couldn’t see going far enough to hurt an innocent child to get what she wanted. Could she?

“You understand, don’t you?” Soul whispered.

She nodded.

Soul reached out and gently embraced the woman who was falling into a pattern with all the other women around him. Everyone wanted a child, a family, their own small happiness. He wondered what it was about children that made people to alternately happy and unhappy.

Medusa drew back from him and looked into his face curiously. “Soul, will I be able to see my baby again?”

Soul smiled at her. “Yes,” he said softly.

She tightened her arms around him. “Thank you for this… thank you, Soul.”

…

After Medusa left, Soul stared out the window at the deep dark night beyond. He wondered how all the strands in the web had become so tangled—his life, Ragnarok’s slave being Chrona, his mother’s slave being Medusa, his sick brother tracking him down, Maka’s aunt Yuca tearing through everyone’s lives to get a baby while his mother had too many dead ones, everything. Each strand in the web touched another and became inexplicably tangled. 

Even though he was exhausted, Soul couldn’t fall asleep. His mind kept whirring with haphazard thoughts and he was nervous that Wes would come into his bedroom and try to hurt him again. Soul knew he didn’t have it in him to hurt his brother even in his own defense. And if he were to so much as push Wes off too hard, his brother’s brittle body would break apart.

Soul was caught. He had no idea what to do now.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	49. Attack on the Evans!

Hm, I don’t have anything to report right now… Except maybe it’s unreal how popular CATastrophe is while Original Sin is very much not. Two chapters of CATastrophe and it has double the amount of reviews Original Sin has for thirteen chapters.

X X X

A few days passed without incident.

Wes returned to his amicable desperate I-love-you-so-much-Soul-and-oh-how-I-missed-you-all-these-years attitude, clinging to Soul like Velcro and begging him to accompany him on piano. There were no more words about Aurora’s murdered songbirds nor did Dante act soft and touch Soul’s battered wrist where his fingers had left dark planets and Aurora coddled both her boys equally. Medusa was the only one who seemed to have changed. She often stared at Soul with her golden eyes soft and desperate. He figured she was thinking about Chrona and he was thinking about Maka just as much. He wondered how she was doing with her fake pregnancy and her fat suit and all that jazz, but he was sure everyone was helping her. 

Then, one night—suddenly and without warning—everything changed.

First, the storm came up out of nowhere with howling winds that rattled the windows and a lashing sheet of ice-cold rain, with crashing thunder like rattling bones and lightning brighter than any fire, and with a power outage. 

Soul was sitting at the window in the library when the power went out. Groaning, he closed the book he had been reading and made his way through the darkness with both hands stretched out in case of obstacles. He blundered his way to the door, the only flashes of light coming from the lightning outside. He heard it strike a tree and the pine flamed for a moment, offering plenty of light, before the pounding rain guttered it out. 

In the hall, Medusa was just about to open the door and she had a glowing bouquet of flashlights. The light played upon her face eerily, but she smiled that desperate little smile when she saw Soul. “There you are,” she said breathlessly and handed him a flashlight.

“Did you flip the breaker?”

She nodded.

“So we’re in the dark for the time being,” Soul continued. “Where is everyone?”

“I’m not sure about your father and Wes, but Aurora is in her study. I’ve already given her a flashlight,” Medusa said.

“Give me some lights. I’ll help you,” Soul said and Medusa passed him two more already-lit flashlights. Soul turned them out, but the darkness crept in like an uninvited guest and he saw why Medusa had them all lit. 

She didn’t like the dark. 

No slave did. You never liked the things that happened in the dark.

Soul met her eyes and she looked quickly away. 

“I’ll find your father if you would be kind enough to look for Wes. Everyone is to meet in the kitchen until the storm blows over. Aurora will be waiting there for us,” she said and hustled off into the darkness with her branches of light darting in each and every direction.

Soul turned and went in the opposite direction. He opened every door, stuck his head in, and called out, “Wes? Dad?” but no one answered him. There was only bleak darkness on the other side of the door and monsters in the closets and under the bed. 

Suddenly, Soul heard a small cry.

He slammed the door and listened hard, but all he could hear was the pounding of the storm—the lash of rain, the crash of thunder, his own rapid heartbeat.

“Where are you?” he called out and listened for any sort of answer. “Answer me! Wes? Dad? Medusa?”

The sound came again, louder, sharper, and Soul rushed down the hallway. What if his brother had fallen in the darkness? God, he would probably have some broken bones and they would have to drive to the hospital in this storm. 

“Wes?!” Soul shouted. Maybe if Medusa was close she would hear him calling and come to help. “Wes, is that you?”

The cry again, somewhere in the dark. 

Soul played the beam of the flashlight down the hall, but it was deserted. 

One of the rooms then?

He began opening doors left and right, calling out and flashing the room with light. Finally, he reached the last door in the hall before the staircase that went down into the living room. This was Dante’s office. He was certain Medusa would have checked here for his father first and foremost, but he yanked the door open anyway. 

“Wes? Dad? Medusa?” he called and swept the beam of light in, spearing through the darkness. Something on the desk caught the light, thick and shiny. 

The power flashed on, so bright to Soul’s single flashlight beam that he was blinded momentarily.

It was then that it happened.

The cry came again, first, desperate-sounding.

And in the moment Soul blearily tried to focus his burning eyes, something cold and sharp sank deep into his side. It was like a bite from some angry animal, tearing hopelessly at him, but the blows were weak. His skin and clothing split but the blade didn’t get much deeper than that. Soul grabbed it in the darkness, fingers closing around a thin wrist, thinner than even his own, and he yanked the knife out of his assailant’s grasp.

Out of Wes’s grasp.

With his eyes finally adjusted to the light he saw that there was blood all over his father’s desk and his father was laying on the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Dante was reaching out one hand desperately and Soul saw that his face had been slashed from ear to ear in a sick smile. (1) That must have been why the cry had been so strange sounding.  
But Wes…

Had Wes really attacked their father or was there another assailant in the dimly-lit room.

“Wes?!” Soul began. 

But Wes leaped at him and they both went down in a heap on the thick carpet in the hall. The flashlight flew from Soul’s hand and rolled away down the hall. In the faint light spilling from Dante’s study, Soul saw that Wes’s face was paler than paper and his eyes were wild. Carefully, Soul wrestled his brother off and pinned him beneath him. It wasn’t difficult to overpower Wes—in fact, it was harder to be careful not to hurt him.

“Medusa!” Soul shouted and his voice bounced off the walls. “Medusa! Help me! Where are you?!”

“I scared her off,” Wes choked out. “Get off me, Soul. Get off me so I can kill you…”

Soul ignored him. It was clear Wes needed professional help. “Medusa! Mom! Somebody!”

“No one’s going to come to help you, Soul…” Wes rasped. “This is a house for the dead and you’re not welcome here anymore.”

“Medusa!”

“Get off me, little brother. I need to kill you now and I know it will be harder than killing the babies in their cribs. That was easy, just put the pillow over their faces and they can’t even push them off. It’s a miracle any baby survives infancy. It’s a miracle you survived at all—infancy, life here with me, slavery, life here.” Wes coughed and blood bloomed on his pale bluish lips. 

“Stop it,” Soul said sharply. “You’re making yourself sick.” Then, he desperately looked into the darkness of the hall. “Medusa!”

A bad thought occurred to him. What if Wes had hurt Medusa? What if he had hurt Aurora? He had already hurt Dante and cut at Soul’s side. 

Wes was out of control!

“Get off me, Soul…”

“Wes, why are you doing this?”

Wes glared his red eyes up into his brother’s face. “They’re my family. My parents!”

“They’re mine, too. We’re brothers.”

Wes shook his head. “No! I’m going to die! I want them to be all mine and I’m tired of you getting in my way.”

“What did I do?!” Soul shouted. His heart was pounding so loud.

Wes laughed bitterly, still trapped beneath Soul’s stronger body. “You’re the healthy son. They wanted you to perform with them so I broke your hands to keep you from playing.”

A flash of memory plowed into Soul’s skull and he almost felt sick. He remembered that night now. 

_I hadn’t been able to sleep, worried about mother and father and Wes and everything. I worried a lot even for a young child. So I got up to play the piano… Wes and I used to share a room back then and he must have heard me get up. He followed me to the piano room and I asked him if he wanted to play with me, but he didn’t say anything. He just stood beside the piano in the dimness of the single candle I had lit and watched me. I played for him. I played his favorite song. He put his hand on the fall and I wasn’t even nervous. Why would my brother ever hurt me?_

_Then, there was nothing but pain. I screamed, waking the entire house with my screaming, and begged Wes to lift the fall. God, he had climbed up on it, all his weight on his knees and on the fall and on my hands. I could smell my blood and see the white bones sticking up out of my flesh. It was like something out of a horror movie._

_Then, Daddy tore down into the piano room. He didn’t say anything to Wes, anything about how he was kneeling on the fall and crushing my hands. He just grabbed Wes up under one arm and cradled me in the other like a baby. I didn’t care. My hands hurt so bad and I held them against my chest, inhaling the scent of my blood._

_Mommy appeared in the doorway, not even in her robe. Her face was wild with some fear, some old ghost, something that had happened before. Losing a child! She demanded what had happened, but Daddy pushed past her and rushed us all into the car. He buckled me in and I don’t remember anything after that. I don’t even remember Wes kneeling on the piano fall. I just remember waking up and I can’t move my hands and my mother is crying and Wes has this weird little smile on his face. I ask what happened and Daddy leaves the hospital room and Mommy just tells me that “There was an accident.”_

“Why would you do that to me?” Soul choked out. It hadn’t been an accident—it had been the farthest thing from an accident.

Wes snorted. “I wanted them to let me play with them, but I was too sick. The stage fright might kill me,” he growled.

“You could have talked to Mom and Dad. They would have listened.”

Wes shook his head. “Not to me! They never listened to me!”

Soul’s heart thudded so loud that he was sure Wes could hear it too. It was going to throb its way right out of his chest. 

“So they decided to get rid of you.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Soul begged. 

“Why? That’s what they did. They sold you as a slave to protect me and to protect you, but even after you were gone, you were always on their minds. They kept pictures of you everywhere. I destroyed all of them except two and the x-ray of your shattered hands. Sometimes, I liked to take them out and look at them and know what I did to get rid of you.”

Soul’s eyes burned. 

“Do you remember what I did the night before they got rid of you?”

“Stop it…”

“I carved into your back with a razor blade and a sharpie!”

_I was trying to sleep, but I couldn’t I was afraid. Mommy told me I was going away somewhere safe, but Daddy told me the truth. SLAVE. I thought it was an ugly word and I hadn’t heard it before because we called Medusa ‘servant.’ The word made me feel sick, but Mommy insisted it was for the best—it was to protect me, to protect Wes. I didn’t want any harm to come to my poor brother, did I? And I didn’t so I would go without a fuss, but I still couldn’t sleep. I wanted to get up and play the piano, but my hands were still so broken, still in thick casts. I still didn’t remember what happened and no one would tell me._

_Wes came into my room and he had things in his hands. I wasn’t sure what, but I was happy to see him none the less. He came and sat on the bed and smoothed my covers. I was glad I had such a wonderful big brother to take care of me. We talked a little while, but not about tomorrow—not about me leaving. (Mommy told me not to say it to him because it might upset him. We always had to be careful about Wes.) He had a weird little smile on his face again._

_He asked me to play a game and I loved games. He helped me take my shirt of and then rolled me over onto my stomach. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I knew Wes wouldn’t hurt me. He was my big brother, after all. Then, he said, “Here’s the only rule. You have to try not to scream. When you can’t anymore, you say Mercy and I’ll stop. Then, we’ll start again.”_

_I didn’t like the sound of that, but I nodded into my pillow._

_Then, Wes carved into my back with something cold and sharp. My flesh was like warm butter and I felt hot wetness rolling down my sides. I dug my teeth into my pillow and didn’t scream like he told me too. After the pain of my broken hands, other pain didn’t seem like much to me anymore. He then dug into me with something else and I smelled the strong ink of a sharpie marker. Then, surprisingly, he sat back and stroked my spine._

_“I can’t believe you didn’t scream.”_

_I nodded._

_“This way, you’ll never forget what you’ve lost. They’re mine now and you’re nothing.”_

_I didn’t understand, but I nodded anyway. Then, Wes got up and left the room. He closed my door tightly, shutting me in the dark, but I didn’t call out for him to open the door as I once would have. Suddenly, I didn’t want to see Wes anymore. My back hurt, my hands hurts, and I was afraid of tomorrow._

“Stop it!” Soul shouted. “What’s wrong with you?!”

“I’m going to die!”

“That’s no excuse! You’re supposed to live until then. Why are you hurting everyone?!”

“Why should you get to keep my family?! They were mine first!” Wes shrieked.

Soul saw Dante’s big strong hand fall limp out of the corner of his eye and felt his heart jump into his throat. “We need help,” he said and yanked Wes’s wrists together so he could hold them with one hand. He needed to restrain Wes somehow. 

Where had that knife gone anyway? And the flashlight?

“Get up,” Soul said sharply to his brother and hauled him to his feet. Wes fell into him, staggering and heavier than Soul expected. Maybe he had more thrown himself at Soul than fallen.

Then, suddenly, the lights went out again.

As if he had been expecting it, Wes slammed himself sidelong into Soul and Soul, not having been expecting it, crashed into the wall. His head knocked into a picture frame and the thing crashed to the ground, glass shattering. Dazed, his head throbbing and feeling hot blood trickle down his cheek, Soul released Wes. 

The flashlight was a distant shine in the dark hall.

He listened to Wes’s loud footsteps. It seemed Wes knew where the knife had fallen. Soul felt it prick into his thigh, but he was lucky Wes was just as blind as he was in the darkness. He kicked out blindly and felt the crunch of his big brother’s shoulder beneath his foot. Scrambling on hands and knees, Soul made a dash for the flashlight. 

He wanted to just rush off, grab the flashlight and keep going, but he was worried about Dante and the knife. He had to get Wes away from their father and away from that knife. 

Where was Medusa? Where was his mother?

What if Wes had already hurt them?

“Medusa!” Soul shouted and whirled to pin Wes down with the beam of light. Wes was clutching his shoulder, mouth dripping blood. Wes was dying, Soul realized. The leukemia was destroying him right before his eyes and he could do nothing to help. “Medusa!”

Wes was beyond saving in more ways than one.

“Medusa!”

Wes barked a hollow laugh and slumped to the floor, hugging himself. “It’s over now… it’s all over…”

“Wes!” Soul took a step towards him, but the knife shone in Wes’s bloody fingers. He hesitated. “What did you do, Wes?”

“I killed everyone…”

“The babies, I know.” Soul took a step towards his fallen sibling.

Wes shook his head, choking up blood. “No… no… I killed our beautiful mother. First, her songbirds. Then, her in the kitchen where she was waiting for me. I tried to kill Medusa, but she got away. That woman is like a bird,” Wes coughed. “She ran off shrieking into the storm. Finally, I killed our father. Even our father wouldn’t hurt me, even though he’s always known what I was doing. No parent can hurt their own child, even to save themselves.”

Soul rushed past Wes and into Dante’s office, bending to check for a pulse. It was like Wes had said. 

Dante was dead!

Then…

Aurora!

Soul wanted to run to the kitchen, but he was certain it was already too late to save his family.

He knelt at Wes’s side, jaw clenching with rage. He had just gotten his family back and now his own brother had slaughtered them. “Why?!” Soul shouted, “Why did you do it, Wes? Why?!”

Wes hung from his little brother’s grip, blood bubbling from his lips. “I told you. I wanted them all to myself…” Then, he spit blood on Soul’s face. “You were always in my way, but I’ve taken everything from you. You won’t take anything from me ever again, Soul…”

Then, silent death took Wes. His blood-colored eyes slid closed and his jaw hung open with his last bitter words. 

Soul laid him down tenderly despite himself. He didn’t have a cruel bone in his body. Then, he rushed to the kitchen in the dark and found Aurora lying on the floor. Her white hair was threaded with blood, but she was laid out like a princess in her fairytale bed—hands folded over her belly, eyes closed, peaceful—but she was very dead. Soul sat with her for a while, knees of his jeans soaking up her blood, while he waited for the power to come back on. 

Then, he called the police.

Once again, his happy life at home was over. He had never imagined that Wes had been the one taking everything from him. His own brother, his own flesh and blood, but that didn’t matter now. His entire family was dead. Once again, Soul was the only survivor.

X X X

(1) Want to see a really bad Chelsea smile? Look up the “Split-Mouthed Woman” or “Kuchisaki-Onna.” It’s a Japanese ghost, very interesting.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	50. Support of the Friend-Family

For brielle-chan42. Your checking every hours paid off. :)

And this closes Soul’s family arc. Back to Maka and Yuca next chapter.

My original plan was to have Soul’s climax and Maka’s climax end at the same time with a ton of confusion and perspective switching, but that would have been a little stupid so I’m going to have to think of a new plan. Wish me luck. Actually, don’t. I’ll figure it out.

X X X

When the phone rang so early in the morning, Maka Albarn almost didn’t answer it. She was still tired and not ready to get up and start her day. She rolled over, shoved her head under the pillow, and let the machine get it. Then, her cell phone rang. She tried ignoring that too, but the house phone rang again. Finally, disgruntled and concerned because for both her phones to be ringing, something had to be important. She picked up, groggy despite herself, and snapped, “What?”

“Maka?” Whoever it was on the other end was crying, voice cracked and hysterical. 

“Yes,” she said and twisted the cord around her hand. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Soul.”

Maka vaulted out of the bed. “Soul! Soul, what’s happened?”

“Dead… everyone’s dead…”

And that was how Maka Albarn started this lovely Saturday morning—with a death call and funerals and wrapped her arms tightly around the young man who had once been her slave. When had her life become so strange and out of control? Did it all start with her mother’s cryptic postcard so long ago? Or when Wes was born with leukemia? Or when Kami caused the accident that crippled Yuca’s ability to have children? Or maybe it was none of those things. She had no idea. Maybe life was just that way.

…

Soul “Eater” Evans had been a lot of things in his short life. 

He had been a beautiful albino child with a gifted life before him, a performer with his family, a pianist, one of only two surviving children. Then, his hands had been shattered by an “accident,” by his big brother. He had been a slave, been through hell, become “Eater” and wanted for “heinous crimes,” for eating bodies when he was starving to death. Then, he had become Soul again at Maka’s hands. He had kissed death, reached out and touched it. He had had to hold on to his life with both hands. Then, he had become an Evans again and had the piano and beautiful life before him again. Finally, once again, it was all taken from him. He was just a turned-out teenager, just another kid with no family, and desperately reaching out to friends. 

The only thing that remained the same through his life was the fact that he was an albino.

He shouldered the very same satchel Maka had packed for him when he left to return to his family and got off the bus. He wished the piano was small enough to bring with him. He was going to miss the piano. At the stop, Maka and her father, Spirit, were waiting for him. Maka was wearing a fat suit and she looked so incredibly pregnant that for a moment Soul had to double-take. Then, she smiled and held open her arms and he fell into her. 

How had she become his best friend? She had owned him at one point, body and soul.

Her father put his strong arms around both of them. “It’s going to be alright,” the older man said with conviction, but Soul wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Everything he had known had turned out to be a lie—Wes, who he believed loved him and missed him and wanted him back, had murdered their entire family.

Soul “Eater” Evans’ life was in ruins once again.

…

Death the Kid heard about Soul’s plight from Tsubaki. She called around lunch time with a lot of BlackStar yelling in the background. Liz lingered at the threshold, listening as Kid let out several “uh-huhs” and “yeahs” and “okays.” Patty was building a giant house out of Legos in the living room, chatting to herself and humming happily and occasionally shouting in fits of rage at the Legos. When Kid finally hung up with Tsubaki, Liz was all over him with questions.

“What happened?”

“Soul’s back. Something bad happened at his home.”

“What happened?”

“It seems his sickly brother killed their parents and then died himself.”

“Poor Soul,” Liz whispered and twisted her hair around her finger.

Kid nodded and stared at the phone like if would come alive.

“And Maka?”

“She and her father just picked Soul up from the bus station.”

“What can we do?”

“I don’t think anything. This is between Soul and himself. I’m not even certain it’s our place to know until he tells us himself.”

“Then…”

Kid nodded. “We need to just let things work out on their own.”

“Time heals most wounds,” Liz whispered.

Kid took her hand and squeezed it, smiling faintly. “Let’s have some lunch, Liz.”

She grinned. “How about grilled cheese and tomato soup?”

“That sounds great,” Kid said. “Go nuts with the cheese.”

“Patty! We’re going to cook!” Liz shouted.

Like a blur, Patty raced into the room, strewing Legos in her wake. While the girls hustled into the kitchen, Kid went to pick up all the Legos Patty had dropped. He knew from experience that Legos were not fun to step on. When the mess was cleaned up, he went into the kitchen and watched his girls cooking happily side by side. Patty heaped on the cheese and Liz stirred the soup. (Canned, not spectacular, but good enough.) Kid sat at the island, resting his cheek on his hand. He thought about Soul and Maka, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Interfering was not the best move in this situation. 

…

Back in Maka’s house, Soul slumped down on the couch and Maka slithered out of her fat suit. Then, she came to sit beside him and gently put her hand on his thigh. For a moment, Soul didn’t even look at her but his blood-colored eyes finally lifted to her face.

“Maka,” he whispered.

“Soul,” she breathed and gently rubbed his shoulder. “Tell me what happened…”

“My brother… the one who wanted me back so badly… he killed our parents,” Soul forced out. “I found out everything, Maka—I read my mother’s diary! Wes had been killing her babies and he’s the one who,” his voice cracked, “he broke my hands.”

“Oh Soul.” Maka put her arms around him, hugging him gently. 

“I don’t understand, Maka… Am I a bad person? Why are all these bad things happening to me?”

She stroked his silvery hair. “Bad things happen to everyone…”

“I just wasn’t meant to have a family,” Soul choked. “I’m meant to be alone forever.”

There was a knock at the door and Maka called, “Who is it?”

“Tsubaki!”

“Come in.”

Tsubaki opened the front door, dark hair scraped back in a bun with BlackStar at her back. He had duct tape over his big mouth, but his eyes were curved with a small smile. Under her arm, Tsubaki had a basket of fruit and muffins and BlackStar had a jug of iced tea.

“What are you guys doing here?” Maka asked.

“You left your phone off the hook,” Tsubaki said by way of explanation and set the basket down on the coffee table. She tucked some dark hair behind her ear and grinned. “I heard your conversation and it seemed like Soul needs the support of his friends.”

“Are we too late?” Kid asked and stepped through the doorway with both arms around a giant watermelon. Liz had a plate of pulled pork and Patty had a sack of crisp Kaiser rolls. 

“Right on time,” Tsubaki said.

“What’s going on?” Maka asked.

Soul wiped at his tear-stained face nervously.

“We’re having a little get-together,” Liz said softly.

“You always need your family around during times of strife,” Kid said.

Soul’s eyes filled. “But my family is—”

Tsubaki gave his cheek a little kiss. “Soul, you’ve got us,” she said and hugged him and Maka both. “I don’t have any family either, but I have these guys. These monkeys—” BlackStar hooted and Patty joined him but Kid gave them both a stern look “—are my family. And now they’re yours, too.”

Soul smiled at her through his gathering tears and she wiped his cheeks with her thumb. 

Just like that, everything seemed a little brighter and it was like he had never left. Tsubaki was right. His friends were his family and he had never really known his real family to begin with. Yes, he had lost something, but he was gaining more.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	51. Not Sleeping is Contagious

Just to keep it all straight because all these time skips are making me a little confused and I’m sure they’re getting everyone else confuzzled, too: at this time, Maka’s fake pregnancy is halfway through month eight. About a month to go before fake baby and the big showdown!

Kind of a filler to smooth out the remaining kinks from Soul’s family arc. I messed up in the last chapter.

X X X

Once again, Soul Evans was lying on the inflatable air-mattress in Maka Albarn’s living room and Maka couldn’t sleep, as usual. He could hear her pacing about and the tap-tap of her typing on her laptop in her bedroom. He almost got up and went to her, but he was exhausted. He just couldn’t sleep… (Maybe insomnia was contagious and he was an insomniac now too.) He folded his arms over his chest, lying flat on his back, and stared up at the ceiling. The party today had been wonderful. It was great to see Kid and the others and feel their supportive arms around him. 

His new family, but his old one… just when he had finally gotten them back—they had been torn away from him by his own flesh and blood, by his own precious brother. By Wes! And Wes had shattered his hands, killed Aurora’s babies in their cribs, tormented his mother and twisted his father. Wes… in the destruction of Soul’s life, Wes had been the grand architect. Whimpering, Soul pressed his aching hands to his chest and pressed his knuckles against his lips. 

Why?

Why did bad things keep happening to him?

What had he done to deserve this?

In Maka’s bedroom, he heard her gasp out a half-stifled sob and pushed his own grief away, but burying his face deep into his pillow. Maka’s problems were far bigger than his own, but at least they would be resolved quickly. Her fake pregnancy was almost over. Her father, mother, Doctor Franken Stein, Lord Death, and Mari Mjolnir would slaughter Yuca and rescue Chrona and that would be that. Her troubles were almost over.

But Soul felt as if his had just begun… again.

What about Medusa and Chrona? But Maka was so kind… If he managed to find Medusa, he was certain Maka would allow the long-separated mother and child to be together again. If she had been willing to let him go back to his own family, no strings attached. Surely, she would do the same for Chrona whom she loved far more than him. Right? He shouldn’t have anything to worry about and neither should that poor broken family.

Everything was going to work out. 

He had the support of his friend-family. The adults would save Maka and Chrona, they would stop Yuca, and that would be over. He wasn’t a slave anymore—he was human to Maka. He was healed, unhurt, except for the ache in his broken heart. Aside from that…

Yes, everything would work out alright.

Sighing, Soul closed his red-rimmed eyes and tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Maka’s half-stifled sobbing had risen into a loud broken cry that he could tell she was desperately trying to silence to no avail. Soul lay there, listening to her crying, for a few minutes before dragging himself from the air mattress and slinking down the dim hallway to her bedroom. At the door, he hesitated, listening to her aching cries. 

Should he knock or just enter or return to his own bed?

If he was home, back in the Evans mansion and heard his mother crying in her parlor, he would have gone in without a second thought. So, Soul rapped lightly and heard Maka suck in a desperate breath, but entered before she could tell him to buzz off.

“Maka?” he whispered.

“Soul,” she gasped and hastily wiped her cheeks. “Did I wake you?”

For a moment, he just stared at her. She looked so small and frail in her white cotton pajamas. Her ash-blonde tresses were damp, stringy with tears, and framing her face in wisps. Her green eyes were dark, fringed by deep bags, and he decided she must not have slept a wink the entire time he was gone from her life. Without the fat suit on though, her body was frighteningly thin but growing muscular from lugging around all that extra weight on her tiny frame.

Then, silently, he approached where she was sitting on her bed and sat down beside her.

“Soul?”

He reached out and gently wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

A single tear swelled out of her eye and ran down her cheek. “How can you know that? How can you be certain?”

Soul wet his lips. “Because…”

She stared at him, expectantly, while more tears ran down her face.

Soul brushed them away with the pads of his thumbs. “Because… every time something has gone wrong in my life, you’ve been there for me. Now, I’m going to be there for you. I’ll make sure everything works out for you, Maka.”

She leaned into him, burying her face in the side of his throat.

“If it’s the last thing I do,” he whispered.

“Don’t say that, Soul,” she pleaded. “Please, don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Yuca has taken a lot from me and I don’t even want to think that she’ll take you from me.”

“Why would she take me?” he whispered. “the adults are going to take care of her.”

Maka nodded, but sniffled. “I know, but… I’ve been having these strange thoughts lately and bad dreams… horrible nightmares.”

He stroked her hair back from her face. “Bad dreams?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I keep dreaming that the swap will go wrong and they won’t be able to stop Yuca. I dreamed that she killed Chrona right in front of me and took you away. Soul, what if that happens?”

“Why would it? The adults are—”

“The adults failed before,” Maka interrupted him sharply. “They failed the first time they fought her and then she escaped us at the asylum. I mean, it’s just that… Yuca is so clever. What if she destroys us again? What if—?”

“Maka, you can’t keep worrying like this. It’s not going to do anything but make your nerves ragged. And if that happens, you might make a mistake.”

“A mistake?” she whispered.

“Yeah. What if Yuca were to find out now that you weren’t really pregnant? She would destroy Chrona without a second thought.”

Maka let out a desperate hiccupping sob. “No!”

“You should try to get some sleep, Maka,” he murmured and hugged her tightly to his side. “I should do the same.” For a moment, he remained there—embracing her gently against the strong bones and healed muscles of his frame—then, he released her and got up from the bed.

“Soul,” she called out when he reached the door.

“Yes?”

“I… I missed you…”

Soul’s mind filled with sharply images of his lost family—Aurora with her white songbirds perched in her garlands of hair, his father with his loud brass sax or sitting behind his great desk, Wes and his violin and his medical equipment, Dante’s slashed face and all the blood shining in the light of the flashlight, Aurora’s bloodied white hair and folded hands, Wes dying and spouting mean things in his arms. He forced the stone of agony back down his throat, swallowing it, and allowed the truth to come out in a soft little breath.

“I missed you, too, Maka.”

…

Across the necropolis, Elizabeth Thompson couldn’t sleep either. In the bed beside her, her damaged sister Patricia was snoring away loudly and her body was strewn all over the covers. Lately, she couldn’t stop thinking about Kid. She just couldn’t get him out of her mind. He was her master, but he was so kind to her. She… did she dare admit it, even to herself, that she might care for him as more than her master? Did she care for him more than a slave should?

She rolled over in her bed, snarling the covers around her shoulders.

Even if she did admit it, there wasn’t anything she could do. She was still a slave and he was the son of prosperous Lord Death. He could never be with her—never! Liz buried her face into her pillow and made a soft broken sound in the back of her throat. What could she do with this heart of hers? It was worth breaking, not something she could ever give to Kid. He deserved so much more than she could ever offer him. She was just a slave…

In her sleep, Patty began to giggle and then cry in agony. Maybe she was dreaming about the night she lost everything—lost her mind and her age and even her sense—when that horrible man bashed her in the head with the fireplace poker. 

“Patty,” Liz whispered and sat up in her bed. Her naked shoulders gleamed and she felt the collar of scars around her throat burn like the old metal collar she used to wear. “Patty, wake up, sis,” she whispered and then got out of bed. She took Patty’s shoulder and shook her gently. “Patty…”

Patty suddenly lurched up, screaming bloody-murder. Her face was white in the dark, eyes so wide that it seemed they would fall out of her head, and her mouth gaping open.

“Patty, Patty! It’s just a dream! Wake up!”

But Patty’s scream went on and on.

Kid crashed into their shared bedroom, flew across it, and grabbed Patty by her shoulders. He shook her roughly, but she just kept screaming. “Patty!” Then, without warning, he slapped her—not hard enough to hurt her, but enough to scare her out of her nightmare. “Patty!”

With a gasping sob, she came back to her senses. “Kid?” she whispered and for a moment, there was the sister Liz so longed for—the undamaged Patty. But it was gone in a heartbeat. She laughed and threw her arms around Liz and Kid, shrieking, “Slumber party!” Like any child, she fell asleep again seconds later.

Kid eased her down against the pillows. “What was that?”

Liz wiped her wet cheeks. “She must have had a nightmare.”

Kid put his arm around Liz and dried her face with his sleeve. “Are you alright?”

She looked at the faint scar on his face from where the fork had plunged through his cheek. Gently, she traced it with her fingertip and Kid put his hand over hers. 

“Liz?”

“Can I…?” She lowered her eyes from his face.

“What?”

“Kid…” she whispered. Her throat was incredibly dry. What could she do? What would he say?

His golden eyes glowed in the dark, fringed by those long thick lashes of his. He looked so handsome, like a model, save the three stripes of white that were streaked through his hair. Instead of what she had intended, Liz found her eyes wandering to those stripes and her hands as well.

“What are these from?” she whispered and fingered the snow white locks that were threaded through his night-dark hair.

Kid stared into her face and then sighed. “You know how they say stressful events can turn a person’s hair white? Like Marie Antoinette’s did overnight before she was executed.”

Liz nodded.

“Well, that’s what happened with my hair.”

“Something… bad happened to you?”

“In a way,” he murmured.

“But, Kid…”

“You know it’s only me and my father, Liz. Well, the first stripe of white came when I saw my mother die. It was a car accident and I was with her when it happened. Her body was torn in half by the steering column, but I wasn’t hurt. In the hospital that night, part of my hair turned white.”

Liz was silent, touching Kid’s face gingerly.

“Then, my father lost it without her. He tried to commit suicide. He cut his wrists in the bath and I came in when the water was full of red blood. I called the ambulance and by the time they arrived, another part of me had turned white.”

“Kid,” she whispered. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I do want to. It’s just… I’m not the kind of person to volunteer this information, but I’ll tell you because you asked.”

“You don’t have to.”

Kid cupped her face gently. “The third time… was when I first saw you, Liz.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“I glimpsed you at an auction. You were rail-thin with Patty screaming and holding onto you so that her nails dug into your flesh, but the auctioneer tore you both apart. You both struggled so hard and every time Patty got back to you, her nails dug into you and you were so bloody by the time they just skipped you because no one would buy wild slaves like that. I just couldn’t bear to see such a beautiful girl tormented like that and I knew I had to find you both and take you away.”

Liz touched the third stripe of whiteness in his hair. “Because of me…”

Kid nodded. Then, he rested his forehead against hers. “I think, Liz, that from the moment I saw you, I lo—”

“No!” She screamed. She tore herself from his arms, dashed to the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her. She slid down, clapping her hands over her ears. “No, no, no,” she repeated in a chant. “No, no, no, no, no…!” Because she couldn’t let Kid sink down to her level. As much as she wanted it, she couldn’t bear to hear that he was willing to discard everything that brought him to the top of the pyramid just for her. She didn’t want to be the one to bring him down. “Please, no, Kid. Marry a princess… Don’t even think about me…”

…

Tsubaki Nakatsukasa hadn’t been able to sleep when she got home from work at the Café Cat’s Eye so she decided to relax a little. She lounged back in the hot bath, eyed the chair she had pushed against the door to keep BlackStar from peeping on her, and decided that all was right with the world. Soul was back with Maka and that would surely lift Maka’s spirits. She had been deep in the dumps lately, but she cared deeply for Soul. That much was clear. Considering that she had completely stopped sleeping after he left, it was clear. Tsubaki had spoken to Liz earlier today about her feelings for Kid and it seemed that even that was clearing up. She sighed and sank deeper into the hot water. Little did she know, things were far from cleared up—not even close, in fact.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review!


	52. First Convergence Before the Showdown

Short-ish chapter, barely 2,000 words. Maka’s arc is beginning to lift off. I have only one character unaccounted for—stupid Medusa went and slithered off on me. Get back here! I’m not finished with you, snake-woman! *runs off shrieking* Yeah, I’m bat shit crazy…

Well, I started the last chapter for this story today so I decided to post because I could. This story is going to be over by sixty-five chapters, everyone!

X X X

Yuca Kishin patted Chrona’s soft violet hair. By now, under her care, the young slave had gained weight on his skeleton-thin body. Now, he looked less like an abused corpse and more like a human boy. His cream-colored skin had lost all its dark bruises and was now flushed with life and some small manner of cheer. He was happy to not be hurt and to be eating and not to be trapped under Ragnarok’s thumb. Yuca had told him that she had shot his cruel master and Chrona had even managed not to smile. As much as she hated to admit it, Yuca had grown rather fond of the boy.

Chrona was sitting on the couch beside her, napping lightly.

Yuca stroked his hair again, smoothing the now-evenly-cut tresses against his soft cheeks. As much as she had come to enjoy Chrona and his company, she was eager to get a baby of her on from her sister’s sweet Maka. She was desperate for the child to call her own. She had only ever wanted one thing in her life—to be a mother, but then Kami had caused the accident… and her chances had been ruined. She would never have a child of her own flesh and blood. Her sister’s child and a father of Yuca’s choosing for the baby was as close as she could ever come to that.

Sighing, she called for Nero and Kuro.

“Yes, mistress?” Kuro said immediately when he entered the living room of their little hidey-hole.

“Go now to Death City and see how my little bun is baking,” Yuca said with a wave of her hand. “When you return, I will contact Maka and see when she is due. I am suddenly eager for my own child.”

“But this slave…”

“I will return Chrona as promised, unless he wishes to stay with me, of course.”

“I understand, mistress.”

Then, the photonegative images that were her henchmen slithered off into the darkness of the deserted house. Yuca heard the front door bang shut and then she was alone with Chrona on the couch Silently, she gathered Chrona against her side and stroked his soft hair.

“Soon, Chrona,” she whispered. “Soon, we will have anything we ever wanted.”

In his sleep, Chrona murmured and shifted, burrowing closer to Yuca. “Mother,” he whispered.

Yuca smiled and stroked his hair.

…

Kami Albarn knocked lightly on her ex-husband’s bedroom door with her remaining hand, listened to him crashing about as he struggled into his robe, and then called out a breathless, “Come on in, Kami!” She opened the door and chuckled at his haystack of blood-red hair. 

“Spirit,” she giggled. “You’re a disaster.”

“Well,” he protested lamely. “It’s early!”

“I know that. I figured you forgot, but we’re supposed to meet Lord Death today to begin outlining the exchange plan. Maka will be hearing from Yuca any day now,” she said softly.

“I didn’t forget!” he continued and shrugged back out of his robe.

“Why did you put that on if you were going to change right in front of me anyway?” Kami demanded, pressing her fingers to her lips.

Spirit shrugged. “I was originally thinking I should be polite because there was a lady in the house, but you’ve seen it before. We do have a child together, Kami. If you’d rather not see, you could always turn away,” he explained.

Kami wet her lips as Spirit slipped out of his robe and revealed the broad expanse of his shoulders. His muscles rippled beneath his skin like water, smooth and perfect. She remembered dragging her nails across his back the night they consummated Maka among many other things she had done with and to his handsome body.

“Kami?”

“I… I should go!” But her feet were rooted to the carpet.

Spirit glanced over his shoulder at her. “Our divorce was fake, Kami. You do remember that all the bad blood between us was made up, don’t you?”

She wet her lips and forced a wry chuckle. “You’re acting as if you want me to stay and watch you.”

He smiled softly. “I’m saying I’m offering, Kami, that’s all.”

Her throat went dry. “But Spirit, after everything I’ve done to you and to Maka, to our relationship…”

“Maka and I are both tough people. She and I have already made up, I think—she hugged me! And Kami,” Spirit closed the space between them and put his fingers beneath her chin, lifting her green eyes to his own blue ones, “I never stopped loving you.”

Then, because they were adults and there was no need for games, he dipped his head so that his ruby-red hair curtained his face and kissed her for a short moment. Her breath gasped against his mouth, but he pecked her cheek and turned away to finish dressing. Kami just stood there, even after he was finished with her remaining hand clutched in her shirt. 

How long had it been since she had been kissed? How long had it been since he had kissed anyone?

Too long, he decided. Too long, indeed.

“Well,” Spirit said with a sigh and draped his suit coat over one shoulder, hooking it with his long fingers. “We should get moving. Lord Death doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“R-right,” Kami forced out and scrambled after him, forgetting both her coat and purse. He guessed that kiss had scrambled her, but when he got into the car and tried to start it without the keys, he realized that it had scrambled him a little bit too.

…

Lord Death was already patiently waiting in the little diner they had started frequenting during this big crisis when Spirit and Kami arrived. If they weren’t careful, the waitress would start knowing them all by name. He gave the parents a little finger wave and they hustled over to him.

“Sorry we’re late,” Kami offered.

“Quite alright. Mari’s running a little behind, too, and Stein will not be joining us this morning. He worked two twenty-four hour shifts and needs to rest. I will inform him of any and all decisions when I speak with him later,” Lord Death explained.

“Why aren’t the kids here?” Spirit asked as he pulled out a chair for Kami.

Lord Death eyed this small affectionate exchange, but said nothing about it. “I thought it best that they stay out of the fighting this time. I don’t want a repeat performance of what happened at Kid’s house.”

They nodded in agreement.

Mari came in through the door then, letting in a gust of wind and the heavy scent of rain as she hurried over to the table. “I’m so sorry! The shop was slammed with donations. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get them all in before it rained.”

“Is it raining yet?” Spirit asked.

“Not yet.”

Kami picked a leaf out of Mari’s golden hair. “Windy, huh?”

“Um, can we discuss the weather a little later, please?” Lord Death interrupted.

Mari flushed. “Yes, of course!”

“I’m sure Maka will be hearing from Yuca within the week,” Kami began. “we should have half a plan prepared to offer Yuca. We need to be able to trap her and that will be hard if she sets the entire thing up.” 

Spirit nodded in agreement. “We need to make the switch in familiar terrain so we at least have the upper hand on her.”

“Yes, but where should that be?” Lord Death asked. “It mustn’t be a public place.”

“The park,” Mari offered.

“Too big. Yuca would escape in a heartbeat,” Kami said. “She escaped in a house, remember?”

“What about that asylum again?” Spirit suggested.

“She knows that place like the back of her hand,” Kami said.

“Yes, but we could set up traps just like she set for us,” Lord Death interjected.

“True.”

They mulled this over.

Kami chewed her lip. “Also, it would be an easy matter to leave her body there. She would never be found. There are countless bodies of patients buried around that abandoned asylum.”

“Patients?” Mari whispered. “I didn’t see a cemetery.”

Kami shook her head. “They said they escaped, but they vanished without a trace. They were really killed and buried on the grounds.”

Mari shuddered. “I don’t like the idea of Yuca’s ghost roaming around.”

Lord Death put his fingers to his chin. “But the idea of being able to hide the fact that we’ve slaughtered Yuca is ideal. We don’t need to get the police involved and risk a trial that could land us behind bars. Even if Yuca is a psychopath, there is a chance the jury would side with her.”

“Then it’s settled,” Spirit said. “We’ll make the switch at the Denbigh Asylum.”

Lord Death nodded slowly. “I think that would be best.”

Kami sighed heavily. “But, she knows that place so well.”

“It’s alright, Kami,” Spirit said and put his hand over hers. “This time, we’ll smoke that bitch for certain. We’ll bring bigger guns and Yuca won’t be expecting any treachery from us. She expects to get a child from Maka, give us Chrona, and that will be that.”

Mari nodded. “I think this is the best option we have.”

Kami squeezed her ex-husband’s fingers. “I guess you’re right.”

Spirit smiled and stroked the back of her knuckles. Soon this would all be over. Kami could come back to him, come home to Death City, and Maka could have a family again. Well, a slightly larger family with the addition of Soul Eater Evans. Spirit sighed. Yes, this would work. This had to work!

…

Kuro peered in Maka’s bedroom window through a crack in the tightly closed blinds. He was in luck. Usually the house was locked up tighter than a drum and he could never peek in through the windows. He only ever got to spy on Maka when she was laboring around in public. But today—a stroke of luck! Somewhere else, Nero was peeking about with no results save the report that her silver-haired slave was back. They would have to tell Yuca that her plan to ruin Maka’s happiness had failed. Gosh, Maka looked thin under those covers. Did all pregnant women look like that? Kuro thought they were supposed to be as big as a house, but Maka looked as thin and frail as she had the first time he had seen her.

She didn’t look pregnant at all.

Maka groaned and rolled over in her sleep, catching her eyes in the slant of pale morning light. She rolled over again, completely facing Kuro and he saw then for certain that she was as thin as a stick. Her belly was flat and narrow. Kuro eyed her room suspiciously. He had spied on Maka in public and she looked as pregnant as pregnant could be so what had changed that she looked so thin now. Then, he saw it draped over her desk chair—a fat suit with a great rounded belly.

She had been playing them!

Playing the mistress!

That little bitch!

Kuro had half a mind to break in through her window and stab her while she slept in her bed, but Yuca wouldn’t like that. Surely, she would want to take a crueler and better revenge on the little Albarn girl. So, hissing, Kuro met up with Nero and they returned to Yuca’s dusty house to alert her of the treachery brewing.

X X X

Oh noes! Maka’s been found out! What will happen now?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	53. A Deal with Yuca Kishin?

Yaaaaaahhhoooooo!

X X X

Soul woke Maka up Saturday morning with breakfast in bed—a lush meat and cheese omelet, toast, and orange juice. He even found a flower, a yellow dandelion, nature’s beautiful yellow garbage, but a flower none the less and had put it in a small blue vase for her enjoyment on the tray. She was still sleeping contentedly in her cocoon of blankets when he entered, but she stirred when he set the tray down amid all the sleep aides on her nightstand.

“Soul?” she moaned and rolled over, rubbing her eyes.

“Good morning.”

“What brought this on?” she asked as she heaved herself upright in bed.

He smiled. “It’s nice to wake up to breakfast in bed sometimes,” he explained.

Maka smiled up at him. “Where did I find you?”

“On the brink of death,” he murmured and touched the bite at his throat.

“Oh Soul…”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind thinking about it because that happened… I met you and I got to see my family again, for however short a time.” He turned away. “You should eat. Your mom and dad called. They said they’d be over to take you to lunch. They have something to talk to you about.” Then, he closed her bedroom door and left her alone to stare at the tray of food he had brought her.

Maka fingered the dandelion and smiled sadly. “Soul,” she whispered.

…

Spirit and Kami Albarn arrived at their daughter’s house at exactly noon as Soul was finishing up making himself a sandwich. (Spirit had told him kindly that they wanted to speak with Maka alone, but they would all go for lunch some other time together so Soul didn’t feel left out or hated.) When Kami saw him, she stiffly smiled at him and Soul was happy for that small display of acceptance. It seemed she would come to tolerate him in time now that he was no longer a slave or a wanted man.

“Soul, you’re not coming?” Maka asked when she emerged from the bathroom in a waft of steam and saw his sandwich.

“No,” he said.

She turned her eyes sharply to her mother. “Mom—”

“It’s not her,” Soul interrupted. “They want to speak with you alone.”

“Oh,” her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry then.”

Kami looked as if Maka had slapped her, but Spirit understood his daughter’s feelings and only placed a comforting hand on his ex-wife’s shoulder. “Shall we go, ladies? Soul is there anything you’d like us to bring back for you?”

“I’m alright. Thank you though,” Soul said and helped Maka shrug into her jacket with difficulty. She wrapped her hand beneath her enormous belly and staggered about under the fresh weight a moment. “Are you okay, Maka?”

“Fine. I just hate this. How do women go through this for real?”

Spirit chuckled. “They just do, Maka.”

“Why don’t men get pregnant?” she hissed.

“Because men are babies,” Kami supplied.

Soul didn’t think he was a baby, but he didn’t say anything. Spirit, on the other hand, burst out laughing and steered the two beautiful women in his life out of the house and into the waiting car. 

Maka lumbered along slowly but surely and Spirit found himself yearning for the time when he would have grandchildren, but he was happy those days were a long way off. He wasn’t ready to be a pop-pop or to see his precious Maka marry some boy. She was still his baby-girl, but he realized that he had failed at protecting her from the horrors of both boys and life. Even so, as he helped Maka into the vehicle, she grinned at him and said sweetly, “Thank you, Papa,” and Spirit’s heart soared.

Kami saw then that despite the shit she had put her family through, they had come out alright.

…

After outlining to Maka the plan for the switch for Chrona and her fake baby at the Denbigh Asylum, the Albarn family was actually able to have a nice family dinner for the first time since Maka was ten so that was almost six years now. Six years since her family had been together. She only wished Soul was with her. She was beginning to think of him as family despite how their relationship had started—him a beaten slave and her a confused friendless girl. A lot had changed since then. It seemed like so long ago, but it had only been almost a year now. 

She sighed and dug into the blissful caramel and chocolate of her sundae. Across from her, her mother was dealing with a quickly-melting ice cream cone and Spirit was happily munching through the mounds of nuts on his own sundae.

Her father… she had spent so much time hating him for something he hadn’t even done.

Her mother… she had spent so much time thinking her mother was hiding from Maka because of the part of her that was her father.

But Maka had been wrong, so wrong.

“Hey Papa,” she ventured.

“Yes, Maka?”

“I was wondering… could we, maybe, move back in together? You know, be a family again.”

Kami choked on her ice cream. 

“What?” Spirit whispered.

Maka’s cheeks flamed cherry-red. God, she was stupid. Did she think her parents would be able to just forget the treachery of six years apart? They could both very well have significant others by now, in six years! And what if her father didn’t want to go back to Kami, the lying wife who had tormented him into a fake divorce story that made his daughter hate him? “N-never mind!” she gasped out and buried her face in her dessert.

Spirit reached across the table and touched Maka’s hand. “Sweetheart, your mother and I have some things to work out before we can take a step like that and it would be unfair to uproot you if we weren’t going to be able to work it out. Do you understand, sweetie? If we do decide to be together again, we will become a family again, but until we’re able to make that decision, you should stay in that house with Soul. I don’t’ want to see you hurt if it doesn’t work out.”

When had her father become so soft-spoken and understanding, watching out for her and loving her so much? Or had he always been like that and her hate made her unable to see it?

“I-I do,” she stuttered.

“That’s my girl.”

…

Yuca’s fingers tightened in Chrona’s violet tresses. “What?” she snarled.

“It’sss tttrue,” Nero hissed.

“She’s not pregnant. They must be planning something,” Kuro said.

Chrona made a soft desperate sound and Yuca loosened her grip on his hair, stroking firmly in her anger and frustration. 

“My sister’s doing I’m certain. She just can’t let me have the family I want. She just can’t let me have a child!” Her voice rose until she was practically shouting. She wanted to scream, to cry, to throw things like she was a teenager in the asylum again, but she wasn’t. She was the conniving ‘woman scorned’ in this fairytale and needed to act as such. So, she took a deep breath and snarled, “I will make them all pay. Every last one of them.”

“There’s one more thing, mistress,” Kuro began.

“Sssoul hasss rettturned to her,” Nero hissed.

Yuca’s fingers froze in Chrona’s hair. “What happened?”

“It seems his brother slaughtered their family and her returned to Maka because they are friends.”

Yuca bit her mouth. “I will make him pay too, then,” she hissed. “If I cannot have love, cannot have a family, then no one can.” She sucked in some air. Nero and Kuro came to stand before her when she opened her arms to them. Her face was upturned, beautiful but haunted by the weight and tragedy of her desire for something so easy and simple. “Come to me, loves, and love me.”

Beside her on the couch, Chrona wrapped his arms around his legs. 

Oh, Miss Maka was in trouble again. He wished he could do something to warn her as he had with Ragnarok, but he just couldn’t leave Yuca. She needed him. She loved him, but so did Maka so who did he go to? Instead, he waited until Yuca finished and then returned to her arms. She stroked his hair until he fell asleep. 

Then, the word escaped his mouth again, “Mother…”

…

Medusa made her way back to the Evans Mansion and made her way through the crime-scene tape that roped off the house. She came in through Aurora’s parlor window, found her diary among the pillows, and removed it. She searched for Maka’s address and phone number there since they hadn’t been in Dante’s office or in Soul’s bedroom. It was the only place left to look in the entire beautiful haunted bloodstained frozen house.

Soul’s words haunted her.

Chrona haunted her. The baby she had never even gotten to hold.

If it was the last thing she did, she would find her baby and see him again. She just had to see him again, to hold him, to love him and touch him. She would do anything and a woman who would do anything for something is a dangerous woman indeed. 

Suddenly, the phone rang.

Medusa jumped, startled, and stared at it until the ringing stopped. Then, she resumed her search through Aurora’s diary for the address of the girl who was fighting to get her son back from the clutches of a madwoman. Soul insisted that Maka was kind and she believed him. Maka would let her see Chrona, she was sure of it.

Again, the phone rang and it was the same number.

Curious, she picked it up. “Who is this?” she whispered.

“My name is Yuca Kishin. I am looking for the slave called Medusa.”

Medusa’s mouth ran dry. This was the woman who had her son! “I am Medusa,” she said firmly.

Yuca made a delighted sound. “I was worried I would be unable to reach you. Please,, is it possible for us to meet face to face? There is something I wish to discuss with you.”

“You have my son,” Medusa hissed.

“Oh?”

“Chrona is my child.”

“Ah, would you like to see him?”

Medusa’s heart pounded. “You would allow me that?”

Yuca laughed. “You and I aren’t so different, Medusa? Will you help me if I help you?”

“What do you want?”

“What do you want, Medusa?” Yuca countered.

“My son. I want my son.”

“Done!”

“That easy?”

“You see, Medusa, I need someone my enemies trust and you happen to be just the person I need. So, will you do me this little favor?”

“Let me talk to Chrona.”

“All in good time.”

“That do you want?”

“Outside, one of my men is waiting,” Yuca explained. “He will give you a phone and an address. For now, all I need you to do is go to the address and throw a wrench in the works with your arrival.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Why are you doing this?” Medusa asked suddenly.

Yuca was quiet a moment. Then, she said, “For the same reason you are, for the sake of my child.” Then, she hung up with a loud click as if she had slammed the phone down.

Medusa eased the phone back into its cradle. For a child… Maybe she and Yuca weren’t so different after all. So, Medusa put Aurora’s diary back into its resting place and met the parchment-white henchman in the garden outside. She took the things he offered her and headed for Maka Albarn’s home. It seemed that even following Yuca’s orders, she was accomplishing her own means. She would see Chrona again, no matter the cost to herself or anyone else. Even if Yuca decided to stand in her way, she would destroy her. That was the fearsome bond between mother and child that no one could hope to break.

X X X

Man, I feel like this story is NEVER GOING TO END! Every time I reign the plot in, it just spirals out again. I just can’t get it reigned back in! That’s the trouble with having all these characters! If one doesn’t listen to me, they all stop listening! Stop following the crowd, people!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	54. Medusa's Arrival in Death City

Nyah…

X X X

The Evans slave, Medusa, arrived at Maka’s doorstep early the next morning, waking Soul where he was asleep in the living room with her loud knocks. Maka was lying awake in her bedroom and had just come out into the hall when Soul creaked himself out of bed to answer the door, yawning and supporting the weight of her fat suit swollen belly with one hand. He opened it to reveal a golden-haired golden-eyed woman who looked like she had been through hell and back. She looked like Kami when she first arrived except she wasn’t beaten within an inch of her life. She was just muddy and her golden hair was twisted and knotted and her dirty feet were bare.

“Soul,” the woman gasped out and fell into the beautiful albino.

“Soul, who is—?” Maka began.

“Medusa!” Soul embraced her tightly. “I was afraid that Wes had…”

She shook her head fiercely. “No! I ran out into the night! I was afraid, but then I was worried for you. By the time I came back, you were gone the police were everywhere. I hid out in the woods until they left and then I found the address of your friend in Death City, Maka, the girl who bought you and returned you to us!” She sobbed. “I thought you could help me!”

“Of course. I’ll do whatever I can!”

For a long moment, Medusa clung to the younger Evans child, sobbing, and Soul just held her. Maka stared at them, witnessing Soul’s beautiful and tender heart worn on his fragile sleeve. What a wonderful person he was… Finally, she had to know what was going on.

“Um, Soul,” she began. “Who is this?”

Soul pushed Medusa back and guided her into a chair in the nearby kitchen. “This is Medusa, the servant who took care of me and my family since I was very small. I was afraid Wes had killed her when he…” Again, Soul just couldn’t say it.

“Oh!”

Soul got Medusa a glass of water and pressed it into her palms, helping her drink. “And also, Maka, she is…” 

“Yes?”

“She is Chrona’s mother.”

Maka’s mouth fell open and her eyes bulged. “C-Chrona’s mother?” she repeated incredulously.

Medusa nodded, sipping the water slowly and carefully. Those golden eyes studied Maka closely, watching her every move. Suddenly, she said, “You aren’t really pregnant, are you?”

Maka’s heart jumped into her throat and Soul’s eyes widened. “H-how can you tell?”

“I’ve been pregnant before and you just… you don’t look pregnant, but it’s something only a woman would notice,” Medusa said.

Maka sighed in relief. She had glimpsed Kuro and Nero in Death City, spying on her, but Medusa assured her that they wouldn’t know her secret. The plan was still safe—she could still save Chrona and herself and stop Yuca. Soul helped Maka labor herself into the chair across from Medusa and fetched her a glass of water as well. Then, he sat down between the girls.

“Medusa, what happened? Why are you here?” Soul asked.

She set down her water glass. “You told me that your friend Maka was trying to get Chrona back and with your honored parents departed from this world, there is no place for me to go except back to the warehouse. I figured I would hide under the radar for as long as I could and hoped to see my son.”

Maka sputtered. “You won’t go back to the warehouse, Medusa!”

“No?” she asked, mouth curved still.

Maka shook her head vigorously. “No! I’ll take you in here!” she paused, glancing at Soul. “You won’t’ have to go back! At the end of the month, we’ll be making the trade with Yuca to get Chrona back. You and Chrona can be together forever, I promise.”

Medusa smiled softly, that slinky little smile that Soul decided hid her real feelings. “Thank you, Miss Maka.” 

Maka smiled in return and then turned to Soul. “This is unexpected. Do you think we should tell someone?”

He shook his head. “The adults have enough to worry about. I think we’ll be okay.”

“Alright,” Maka said. “How about some breakfast? Help me out of this thing.”

“I’ll cook,” Soul protested.

Maka fixed him with her gaze. “Soul, just help me out of it. Medusa knows and the windows are all closed over. I’ll be fine and, besides, I want to cook. Cooking is therapeutic. How about some waffles?” Soul helped her out of the fat suit and draped it over the back of her chair again. She let out a breath of relief to have escaped her hated body and began rattling around in the kitchen, humming softly to herself. She was very happy.

Medusa eyed Soul across the table, glancing at Maka over her shoulder.

Soul touched her hand where it wrapped around her glass. Her flesh was cold. “Medusa, how did you find me?”

“I looked in your mother’s diary for the address.”

He took a steadying breath. “You knew everything about Wes and the things that happened in that house, you knew what he had done to me, but why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t my place.”

“Medusa—”

“I am a slave, young master.”

“Soul,” he corrected and then said, “So was I.” He met her eyes. “So was I, Medusa, but things like that can change.”

She pulled her hand away. “Your situation was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, Soul. That couldn’t happen for me. All I can hope for is to see my Chrona again, to see my son before I am eaten up again,” she said coldly.

“Medusa,” he whispered.

“Do you really think…” she hesitated, “Do you really think that we’re friends, Soul Evans?”

He looked as if she had slapped him. “W-what?”

“You did,” she whispered.

He bit his lip. “Yes, I did. Of all the people in that lived in that house, I thought you were the closest I had to a friend there.”

She lowered her eyes. “You were wrong, Soul? You’ve been wrong about a lot of things…”

“Like Wes,” he supplied.

She nodded, agreeing, “Like Wes.”

He looked at Maka’s back, listening to her sweet singing as she whisked the batter. “I never should have gone back to that house,” he whispered to Medusa and also to himself. “I should have just stayed here. I would have been a slave all my life, but I would have had the wonderful memories of my family. Those memories wouldn’t have been tainted by what… by what Wes did to me, to us…”

Medusa sighed. “You would have always wondered, Soul.”

“I know, but that would have been better. I also wish… that you hadn’t told me what you just told me now.”

Her head snapped up. 

“I would have liked to continue thinking that we were friends.”

She licked her lips. “Do you enjoy being fooled, Soul?”

He glanced over his shoulder at Maka again and whispered, “Sometimes…”

Then, Maka slid a plate of waffles onto the table before Medusa and Soul, grinned, and said cheerfully, “Dig in, guys!” She plopped down across from Soul, smiling at him winningly and Medusa almost felt bad. These children… they didn’t think anything was going to go wrong in their little plan. They thought everything would work out and he almost told them about how Yuca knew Maka’s secret, but she bit her tongue. She needed to see Chrona and she wouldn’t’ risk anything if it meant she might lose him again. So, she dug into breakfast and didn’t say a word.

…

At exactly noon, Yuca Kishin called her twin sister’s young and not-pregnant lying bitch of a daughter. She had to speak through her clenched teeth, but she was certain Maka didn’t notice. The girl just sounded so happy—sickeningly happy! Together, they agreed and arranged a date to meet at the old Denbigh Asylum where Yuca had been imprisoned as a teen, had Ragnarok rape Maka, had locked up the stupid adults, and carried out all her dastardly deeds. 

The girl didn’t suspect that Yuca knew her treachery. 

And, lying against her side, Chrona never suspected that his mother was playing both sides just so she could see him again.

She smiled to herself and stroked the young slave’s violet hair. Then, she chuckled to herself and just couldn’t stop. Soon though, the cackles gave way to great wracking sobs and she cried into her remaining hand. “Why?” she whispered. “All I want is something to love, to have a family, to have my very own baby. Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve no family of my own?” Even sooner than her laughter had died out, though, her tears dried and her anger gripped her again. 

She would make them all pay!

X X X

I wanted to keep going with this chapter because it’s so short, but I really don’t have anything to yak about. I need a time skip to get to the part where they pull the switch with Yuca because it’s just killing me and becoming WAY to much filler to be healthy. So, next chapter… I see TIME SKIP!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	55. How to Properly Sleep in the Bedroom

I think (I’m HOPING, who am I kidding? My stories never play out the way I want them to) that this will be the final arc for this story. Maybe I can tie it off by sixty chapters… maybe… probably not. Let’s try for sixty-five… jeez… Can I rein it in a little please?

X X X

~Three Weeks and Five Days Later~

Maka cradled the bundle of empty cloth against her chest, practicing so that it looked convincing even though she didn’t really have a baby in there. She had spent a few hours practicing how to coddle and coo at the bundle with her mother’s and Mari’s assistance and she deemed herself a phenomenal fake-mother now. (She was indeed far better at being a fake-mother than a fake-pregnant-woman.) She had never been so happy in her life—to get out of that bloody fat suit! 

Soul almost didn’t recognize her so slender and frail-looking now and less like a swollen pumpkin. He had to do a double take when she waltzed out of her bedroom in a short skirt and nice white blouse instead of her baggy sweats and overloaded frame. She had been beaming too and she looked rather beautiful.

Soul wasn’t a moron. He could admit that… just not out loud…

As they drove to the Denbigh Asylum to make the trade for Chrona or so Yuca thought, Maka leaned against Soul, resting her head comfortably on his bony shoulder. He was such a comfort to her through all this as she was to him since the murder of his family. He was seated to her left, pressing her securely between himself and her mother so that there was hardly any space between their bodies. He was rigid against her side, sitting bolt upright and staring straight ahead with his blood-red eyes fixed on the ribbon of black road, very concerned-looking and pale.

Maka touched his thigh, still holding the bundle tenderly with one arm. “Soul?”

He jolted, snapping his head towards her. His silvery hair kissed his cheeks. 

“It’s going to be fine,” she said softly and reached for his hand where it rested on the cool glass of the window.

He squeezed her thin fingers. “I hope so,” he whispered and offered her a frail smile. His heart was pounding. 

In the seat behind them of Lord Death’s gigantic night-black Excursion were Mari and Stein, the latter smoking. Lord Death was driving with her father sitting as passenger. She and Soul were the only children who had been allowed to come—Maka, because she had to, and Soul because he desperately wanted to and would not be denied. Kid and the others were back at Kid’s mansion, nervously waiting for the results of this final battle between Yuca and their families and friends.

Then, there was a horrible sound—loud! Louder than anything and Maka clapped her hands over her ears, a scream tearing out of her mouth. Something slammed into the side of the large vehicle headlong and it crashed over the edge of the cliff, tumbling down… down… down…

Soul woke with a start, his stomach bottled up in his mouth from that plummeting drop. God, it felt so real! Gasping for breath, he stared at the familiar dark confines of Maka’s living room. Had it really been only a year since she had first bought him in the warehouse, saved him from being eaten alive? It seemed like so much longer… or maybe so much less. He wasn’t sure in the darkness. He could hear Medusa breathing lightly where she was asleep on the couch. 

Everything was different, strange, at night.

Tip-toeing, he crawled from his mattress and went to the kitchen, padding on bare feet. He found a glass in the dark, filled it with tap water, and drank deeply until he was out of breath. Then, he set the glass quietly in the sink and headed back to his pallet in the living room. 

Down the hall, though, Maka’s door eased open and she called out, “Soul? Are you awake?”

He sighed, calling back, “Yes, I am.”

Moments later, she appeared at the mouth of the hallway, just as pale and slender as she had been in his dreams though she did not carry the fake-baby-bundle. She was wearing short cotton shorts and a tank top with a light sweater gathered over her shoulders. Her ash-blonde hair was wispy around her pale face and her green eyes gleamed in the darkness of the faint moonlight. She hesitated a moment and then came right up to him and put her arms around his torso tightly.

“Maka?” he asked.

“I heard you,” she whispered.

His heart thudded. “Heard what?”

“You cried out in your sleep.”

Soul rubbed her back. “Let’s talk in your room. I don’t want to disturb Medusa.”

Maka nodded into his chest, but didn’t let him go for several beats. Finally, she peeled herself off and they went together to her bedroom. She sat down on the bed and Soul sat beside her, not as close as he had in his dream. God, he still felt the tendrils of it clutching at him.

“Go away,” he whispered too quietly for even Maka to hear.

“Soul,” she whispered. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

He couldn’t’ tell her the truth. “No,” he lied.

“What if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing will. Everything will be fine,” he assured her. His mouth was sour with those words.

She choked back something in her chest. “But Soul…”

“What?” he murmured.

“Yuca… what if…? Nothing, never mind…”

“What?”

Her eyes lifted to his and he saw that they were filled with tears. “What were you dreaming about, Soul?”

“Nothing, Maka,” he said and looked sharply away.

She caught his face with both hands, turning him back to face her. “Tell me!” she insisted. “I don’t like hearing you cry out like that.”

He lowered her hands. They were so cold. “You should get some sleep.”

She barked a laugh. “I can’t sleep, Soul…”

“Maka, please,” he murmured.

“Soul, just tell me, please. Is it… your family?”

He hesitated. “No,” he confessed.

“Then what?”

“Just… I don’t know, Maka,” he whispered. “I can’t remember.”

Suddenly, she threw her arms around his neck and embraced him tightly. As a slave, he would have frozen in fear at the contact, but he wasn’t a slave anymore. He was Soul Evans, only survivor of the Evans Family Massacre, and brilliant pianist. Gently, he wrapped his arms around Maka’s small trembling frame and held her tightly. He felt her crying into his chest, her lungs heaving for breath as she sobbed, but he wasn’t exactly sure why she was crying.

Finally, after giving her a moment, he pushed her back gently and wiped her face with the sleeve of his pajamas. “Maka,” he asked, “what’s this about?”

“Soul, I feel like… I feel like something terrible is going to happen.”

He felt the lurch of plummeting over the cliff grab his guts again and didn’t tell Maka how his dreams had come true before with the white songbirds. Instead, he just gently stroked her hair back from her face and whispered, “Tomorrow is the big day and it’ll go fine, you’ll see. Just get some sleep, Maka.”

“Soul,” she sobbed and clutched his shirt.

He worked her fingers loose and stood up. “Maka, sleep,” he insisted.

“Soul!” Desperately, she hung on to him. Her eyes were tearing up again, crystals swelling on her pale lashes. “Please, don’t go! Soul, will you—?” She cut herself off, quickly rolling over and hiding her face against the wall.

“Will I what?” he whispered.

“Nothing.”

Silently, Soul sat on the edge of her bed an laid his hand on the curve of her ribs. He could feel her gasping for breath from crying and felt her racing heartbeat. “Maka, what do you want me to do?” he repeated.

She sniffled and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

“I’ll go then,” he said.

As expected, she bolted upright again and threw her arms around him, clutching him desperately. 

He embraced her tightly and whispered, “Please, just tell me what you want.”

“Soul,” she sobbed. “Please, stay with me tonight… just for tonight…” Her voice cracked and she clutched him as if he was going to deny her, but he simply nodded.

“Okay, Maka, okay,” he whispered.

Then, he eased her down against the pillows and she pressed her face into her hands, giving him her back as she sobbed and cried. Soul pressed against her back, spooning the curvature of her thin body and wrapped his arms around her waist. After a moment, she rolled over to face him but kept her eyes closed.

“Soul,” she whispered and he felt her breath on his mouth, but she didn’t kiss him and he didn’t kiss her.

He remained still, holding her gently in her bed, and finally he fell asleep, but he wasn’t sure Maka did. She may have just lay there beside him, waiting… waiting to be kissed, but he couldn’t do it. The feeling of falling was still stuck in his guts. He prayed what he said would be the truth.

…

When Medusa woke up, Soul wasn’t in his bed on the floor and the house was dark and quiet. Silently, she padded down the hall to Maka’s bedroom and nosed the door open without so much as a creak. She was very adept at checking on sleeping children. There, the children were nestled in each other’s arms tightly and snuggled beneath a cocoon of patchwork covers. 

Maka’s green eyes were open and she was gently stroking Soul’s cheek, smoothing down his silvery hair. As he slept and Medusa watched, Maka leaned forward slightly and pressed her lips to just the corner of his wounded-looking mouth. She didn’t kiss him full on, only a small timid little peck at the corner of his lips, but still Medusa felt a bubble of concern in her chest. 

Soul had suffered so much and had such a great kind heart. Was this girl taking advantage of him? Suddenly, it became even more important that she get not only her precious son, Chrona, away from Maka, but Soul as well. Medusa would not fail these children this time. She would protect them—she would protect Soul! But how exactly did that work since she was the one who had doomed them and it was too late to change what she had done now?

X X X

Sort of a kiss.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	56. Second Convergence Before the Showdown

Epically short chapter.

X X X

Everyone gathered at Kid’s mansion to organize and then leave for the final showdown against Yuca. (It was easier than meeting at the diner.) There was a general amount of tearful hugging, wishes of luck and assurances, complaining, shouting, and arguing amongst each other because Kid and the others wanted to come along, but Lord Death was insisting that they remain behind where it was safe. He didn’t want a repeat performance of either the attack on the kids or of the arrival at the asylum when they were all trapped. Only Soul and Maka would be permitted to come with the adults because Maka was necessary and Soul wouldn’t be left behind unless they tied him to a chair. This time, Lord Death was going to be keeping a closer eye on everyone. 

There would be no encore to this performance.

“What if Yuca tricks all of you again, huh? What if you get trapped in the asylum again?” Kid demanded of his father with much arm-waving and flailing. He rather enjoyed shouting now that his face was healed. You never realize how much you need to shout and have expressions until you couldn’t for a period of time. “You might need our help!”

Patty was mimicking Kid just behind her sister, flailing and giggling and flapping her arms like a bird trying to take off. She had no idea what was really going on, but she was enjoying the commotion.

“Then I will be calling you, Kid, but you and the others are to stay here where it’s safe,” Lord Death said calmly.

Stein puffed out a plume of smoke. “Honestly, we don’t need to make this a circus. I’m going to snipe Yuca through the window of the Denbigh Asylum and Lord Death and Spirit will attend her cronies while they’re in shock. It’ll be cake,” he said. “Even Kami and Mari was probably not necessary.”

The aforementioned women slid the doctor a glare and Stein continued smoking as if he hadn’t noticed.

“Then why can’t we come along if you’re so certain it’ll be safe?!” Kid demanded again. This time, he had a good point and Lord Death stared t his son helplessly.

Liz put her hand on her master’s arm, gently pulling him back. Lord death smiled at her slightly. At least someone understood wheat he was trying to do here.

Tsubaki waved the remote at BlackStar in warning because he looked about to jump into the fray and then asked, “How will you contact us, Lord Death?”

“Cellular phones,” Lord Death said and pulled one from his pocket. “You kids all have phones, correct?”

Tsubaki nodded.

“But—” Kid began again.

Mari sighed and stepped between the arguing parties. “Listen to me everyone. We’re all going to be fine, you’ll see,” she said and smiled winningly. She could assuage charging beasts with that smile of hers and it made quick work of the humans. “We will see you all bright and early tomorrow at the diner to discuss the finer details of what happened. Alright?”

Tsubaki and Liz nodded. Kid crossed his arms over his chest, but didn’t have any new protests. In the background, Patty stopped trying to fly and just started mimicking Kid’s frown and glare. BlackStar’s throat was working and Tsubaki knew he was getting ready to shout something and warned him with a look.

With a sigh, Lord Death escorted Mari, Kami, Spirit, and Stein out to the waiting Excursion that comfortably sat eight people. There would be just enough room for Chrona and that would be that. The adults left Maka and Soul to say their quick goodbyes. 

After all, no one was going to die.

“You’ll be alright,” Tsubaki said and hugged Maka tightly. 

“Yeah, we’ll see you tomorrow,” Liz agreed.

“I still think a BIG MAN like me should—” And BlackStar’s ass met floor.

“Right,” Kid said finally. “Tomorrow…” Then, he hugged Maka gently and watched them leave out his new front door. How long ago had Yuca barged through it and attacked them?

“Kid?” Liz whispered and touched his arm.

He slid his hand over hers lightly, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb.

“They’ll be fine,” Tsubaki said.

Kid nodded, but continued to watch the door as it swung closed like the door of a prison cell. Something was going to happen, he could feel it like the tingling ache in his damaged face in the same way old wounds felt the change in weather. 

…

After Maka and Soul left to meet the others at Death the Kid’s mansion, Medusa prowled out of the neat little house. She found the vehicle Yuca had promised her waiting like a present at the curb around the corner with the keys behind the visor. Though she had only driven a car a few times, she slid in behind the wheel, backed over a mailbox, and then pulled off down the road in the great hurry.

“Hold on, Chrona, baby. I’m coming.”

She passed Lord Death’s Excursion at his son’s house and took in the description of it. Then, she called Yuca on the phone she had been given and described what the adults were planning. Yuca thanked her graciously, promising again that Medusa would see her son. Then, she hung up with a click before Medusa could ask what she was planning.

Medusa thought about Soul Evans—that sweet hurt boy.

“Hold on, Soul,” she whispered. “I’m coming.”

And she pressed the pedal to the floor, feeling the engine roar and the car surge ahead on the road beneath her.

…

_“Have they left?”_

_“Yesss.”_

_“Contact the mistress.”_

_“Yesss.”_

_“Tell her to be ready and we will follow.”_

_“Yesss.”_

_A pause._

_“Whattt abouttt the woooman?”_

_“She won’t be a problem. She’ll do whatever we say.”_

_“Yesss.”_

…

The return drive to the abandoned Denbigh Asylum, where Yuca had spent much of her youth and Kim-Jacquelyn had been murdered and buried secretly, seemed longer than Soul remembered, but maybe that was because he just felt so nervous. His dreams… his nightmares… they felt so close…! As in his dream, Lord Death was driving with Spirit riding shotgun but that was to be expected, Maka was nestled between Soul and her mother in the middle seat with the fake-baby-bundle in her arms, and Stein and Mari were in the seat behind them though Stein wasn’t smoking. The fact that Stein wasn’t smoking was the only thing unexpected, the rest was usual and Soul tried to push his dreams into the back of his mind.

Soul forced himself to take a deep breath. Everything was going to be fine. It was only a dream, after all. Just because his other dream about the white songbirds had been true didn’t mean anything. His imagination was running away with him.

“Soul?” Maka whispered suddenly in the quiet of the car.

He jumped.

“It’s going to be fine,” she whispered.

A smash of déjà vu assaulted him, making him sick and he almost passed out, but grasped his consciousness with both hands. Instead, he found his hand reaching for Maka’s of its own accord. “I hope so,” he whispered and the sensation smashed into him headlong again. These same words… he had spoken them in his dream…

He glanced out the windshield at the ribbon of black road. 

To the left of the winding road, there was a massive cliff—a dark steep drop-off into abject nothingness. His heart leaped up into his throat, smothering him and making it hard to breathe. Precious seconds were lost as he gasped for breath. Then, he sat up suddenly, throwing himself over Maka to grab Lord Death’s shoulder tightly in a white-knuckled grip.

“Stop!” Soul shouted. “Stop the car! Stop!”

“Soul, what—?” Spirit didn’t get out any more than that.

Another car smashed into them sidelong and rammed the Excursion to the edge of the road. For a moment, it seemed the vehicle would not go over the cliff as it had in his dream and Soul let out a breath. Maka’s fingers were like knives in his back, digging in desperately, and he heard her make a little animal sound deep in her chest. Was that his heart pounding so hard or could he just hear hers? Then, he heard the engine rev and the car that had smashed into them gave the Excursion a nudge closer to the road. He glanced up and saw Yuca give them a little cheeky smile and a finger wave before the car slid over the edge of the cliff and everything was gone.

Down, down, _down_ …!

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	57. Aftershock Post Accident

And here’s the pitch! The ball is rolling!

There, I posted because you all bitched, moaned, and complained enough. That and since this is completely finished, I’m kind of in a hurry to get it up.

X X X

There was glass everywhere. That was the first thing Soul noticed when the curtain of darkness peeled back from his consciousness. The second thing he noticed was the blood—blood was everywhere, too.

Third, he took in the damaged vehicle. It had managed to remain on its wheels rather than flipping, but the angle from crashing down the mountainside was unspeakably steep. Soul’s body was slumped forward, held only by his seatbelt. The window to his right was a mess of spidery white cracks and smeared with blood as if Kami’s head had struck it and broken it. The window to his left had been shattered completely and a cold breeze was blowing in through the gap. In the front seat, Lord Death was pinned by the steering wheel and there were several jagged cracks threading through the windshield. Spirit was slumped sideways against the window with blood making a slow trail down his forehead. In the back seat, Stein and Mari were a tangle of limbs and dry tobacco dusted them. 

Fourth, he realized that Maka and her mother were gone!

…

The last thing Maka remembered was the car plunging down over the mountain side and clutching Soul’s shirt desperately in her hands. She couldn’t remember if she had screamed, but she must have because her throat was dry and sore. She forced her eyes open, feeling the crackle of dried blood on her skin. 

“Soul?” she croaked.

But she wasn’t even in the car anymore. She was in a very familiar and very bad room—the room where Ragnarok had raped her. Oh god, she was back in the Denbigh Asylum. Somehow, Yuca had known that she was lying. She had know about their plans. And she had taken the measures for revenge.

“Soul!” she whispered.

But she as alone in the room here, covered in blood. Timidly, she touched her body in search of the wound, but she found nothing. She was completely unharmed, probably because she had been sandwiched between her mother and Soul. Then, whose blood was this?

…

Again, Kami was naked and tied to a chair in the darkness. She sensed Yuca’s presence somewhere in the darkness behind her, but she tried not to give away that she was awake just yet. She needed time to think—to think of what had gone wrong! How had Yuca found out what they were planning? Kami had been so careful to keep the bond between twins that often allowed her to know that Yuca was planning blocked off with bricks. Had that alone tipped off her sister?

“I know you’re awake, sister,” Yuca said flatly.

Kami gave up the ruse, sitting up straight and turning to where she sensed her sister in the dark.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me, your own sister,” Yuca said with a theatrical sob. She paused and then her voice was like ice. “Then again, you always have shown you have the ability to hurt me.”

“Yuca, what happened when we were younger was an accident—”

The point of a knife dug into Kami’s belly.

“Well, it was some accident, dear sister. How did you manage to trip and plunge the knife into my guts?” The point twisted, carving around. “Because… no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to recreate that accident.”

“Yuca, stop—”

“I won’t stop, not for quite a while, sister dear. You see, first I plan to carve you up like a Christmas goose, but I won’t kill you. No, not yet will I kill you. After you’re nothing but blood and pain, I’m going to carve up your little daughter—the bitch deserves to suffer for playing with my hopes the way she did.”

“No!”

“Then, just maybe, I will kill you both.”

Yuca barked a hollow laugh the reverberated against the rotted walls of the decaying asylum. Then, she removed the knife from her twin sister’s stomach, trailed it across Kami’s naked shoulders, and without warning plunged it into her back. 

It gave a new meaning to stabbed-in-the-back betrayal on all fronts.

…

Carefully, Soul freed himself from his seatbelt and crawled over the space where Maka and Kami used to be. There was a lot of blood on the seat, but whose blood was it? He found a gash on the side of his head, still oozing blood, and a few small cuts on his arms and hands, but all that blood couldn’t have come from him. 

Gently, he reached back and shook Stein’s shoulder.

The doctor groaned and stirred. “Urg, what happened?”

“We went over the cliff,” Soul murmured and helped Stein pulled Mari’s prone body over his legs. “Is she alright?”

Stein pulled some of her golden hair out of her face, pressed his fingers to the blonde woman’s pulse, and nodded with a wince. “What happened, Soul? The last thing I remember was… you were shouting. Did you see the car coming?”

Soul nodded because that was easier than saying he had dreamed about these events. “Maka and Kami are gone,” he whispered. 

This brought Stein around fully. “What?”

Soul nodded slowly. “Yeah, they’re both gone.”

“Were they launched from the vehicle?” 

Soul hadn’t thought of that, but both Kami and Maka had been wearing their seatbelts. He shook his head. “They were buckled in. I think…” he hesitated, “I saw Yuca in the car that hit us. She must have taken them.”

Stein’s eyes widened and he tried to habitually push his glasses up on his nose, but they had been knocked off his face on crashing impact. “Jesus,” he said instead. “We have to do something. See if you can bring around Lord Death and Spirit.”

Soul nodded and carefully unbuckled his seatbelt so he could lean forward to rouse the two men in the front seat. Lord Death came around first with a groan and a glance of confusion until he placed where he was, but he couldn’t wedge himself free of the steering wheel. Spirit, on the other hand, wouldn’t wake no matter what Soul did. In the back seat, Stein managed to bring Mari around and she fingered the patch over her eye as she wrestled from her seatbelt.

“What happened?” Mari asked. “I saw Yuca!”

Lord Death kicked the door open and tried to get out from the steering wheel that way, but he was wedged in pretty good. “Yuca must have known what we were planning and laid a trap for us,” he said angrily. “Damn that woman!”

“Where’s your cell phone?” Soul asked Lord Death.

He struggled the phone out of his pocket, but the screen was cracked and the phone fizzled irritably when Lord Death flipped it open. “Broken,” he said flatly and threw it.

Soul turned to Stein and Mari. “Do one of you have a phone?”

Mari shook her head. “Maka had her phone, but Maka is…”

Soul shivered. “We have to find her. We know where Yuca is going to take them.”

Stein’s brow wrinkled. “Where is that?”

“The asylum.”

“How do you know that?” Lord Death asked. His eyes narrowed.

Soul wet his lips. “I just do. I know that’s where Yuca would have taken them.”

Stein slid Lord Death a look. “I think he’s right, but how are we going to get there? This vehicle is trashed and we’re at the bottom of a ravine. Plus, Spirit won’t come around so someone needs to stay here with him. I can’t be me because I’m a doctor and I’m sure Maka and Kami will need medical treatment.”

Lord Death nodded. “I don’t know if I can get out of the car. I’m stuck.”

Soul hoisted himself out the broken window and forced himself through the brush until he reached the open driver’s side door. He helped Lord Death try to wriggle free, but it was hopeless. He was firmly stuck like Pooh Bear in the rabbit hole. “It’s no use,” Soul said.

“We can’t leave them here,” Mari interjected almost desperately. “Spirit’s unconscious and Lord Death can’t get out of the car. What if something happens? They’re too vulnerable.”

“Mari’s right. Someone else has to stay behind,” Stein said. “Soul, maybe you should—”

“I’m not staying behind. I have to find Maka,” the young man protested.

Stein scrambled over the middle seat and forced his way through the brush. “Soul, it just makes the most sense for you to stay behind,” he explained. “Mari is a bodyguard and I’m a doctor. You are a pianist. Stay here where it’s safe.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Stein said firmly. “You will stay here with Lord Death and Spirit.” Then, he passed a gun into Soul’s beautiful long-fingered hands. “You know how to shoot this, right?”

Soul nodded, eyes lowered.

Stein put his fingers beneath the boy’s chin and lifted his face. “That’s it. Stay here and we will go save Kami and Maka, alright?”

“Alright…”

“Good boy.” He ruffled Soul’s silver hair.

Stein helped Mari from the ruined Excursion, wrapped his arm around her shoulders until she found her feet and got her bloodied hair out of her face, heaved out the satchel of weapons and the first aid kit, and then the two of them began struggling back up the mountainside. Soul watched them until they had finally made their way over the ridge where the car had crashed down. Stein waved to him, promising to send help, and then they were both gone. 

Soul waited several minutes with the gun cold in his hands. Then, he tucked it into the waistband of his jeans where it was like ice against his skin. Then, he shoved his way through the thick brush to find the cell phone Lord Death had thrown away.

“Soul, what are you doing? Don’t go too far!” Lord Death called.

Soul found the phone not without some difficulty and scrutinized the ruined face of it. The screen was cracked, but the buttons were all lit up so it was working on some level. He banged it on his palm with no results, took out the battery and put it back in, pressed several buttons, turned it off and then on again, and the phone finally sputtered back to life. There were very few things that couldn’t be fixed by turning it off and then on again. 

Then, he called Kid and did the best he could to describe the location where they had gone over the cliff. Kid promised to get there as soon as he could without police and paramedics unless needed. He begged Soul to wait for them and they would all go on ahead to the asylum together, but Soul was beyond the point of waiting.

Yuca had threatened Maka—the only person Soul had left in his life.

He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.

“Soul! Wait, where are you going?!” Lord Death shouted. “Stay here! Get back here!”

But Soul was beyond listening too. He trudged and struggled back up the steep mountainside, following Stein and Mari’s path and clutching onto the trees and bushes. Finally, he reached the top and headed towards the asylum without waiting for Kid to arrive as backup. He checked the cartridges in the gun—six shots in the simple revolver. There was only Yuca and her two cronies so he had plenty of bullets, plenty…!

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	58. Hurry, Children!

Oops… Kid and the others were too far behind and needed to catch up. Hurry up, everybody! Move it, move it. (My characters must feel like they’re in the army—hurry up and wait, someone else is lost.) Soul vaulted on ahead because he won’t listen to a word I (or anyone else) says!

X X X

As Death the Kid had feared, Soul hadn’t waited for them. 

Cautiously, telling everyone to mind their step because they didn’t need anyone else crashing to the bottom of the ravine, Kid led the others down the steep side to the wreck of his father’s black Excursion. Tsubaki and BlackStar remained at the top, tying a thick rope to the guardrail and tugging it experimentally. When it was secured, she handed it to Patty and told the young girl to go down slowly and carefully. BlackStar would pull anyone up by the rope if necessary. First, they had to get down to the wreck.

Kid, Liz, and Patty arrived at the damaged vehicle to find it bloody and broken, but not empty. Stein, Mari, and Soul were gone. Maka and Kami had been stolen by Yuca. Spirit was still unconscious and Lord Death was trapped by the steering wheel.

A less mature child would have told his father, “I told you so!” but Kid was saving his gloating until later when everyone was safe. Instead, he asked his father, “Are you alright?” as he fit the jack he had brought between the steering wheel and the seat and began to wrest some space between his father’s pinned legs and the bent steering wheel.

Lord Death laughed hoarsely. “Kid,” he began then shook his head. “I’m glad to see you, son.”

Kid nodded and helped his father pry himself out of the car. 

Liz and Patty carefully hefted Spirit from the passenger seat. The blood oozing from Spirit’s forehead and his unconsciousness was a cause for concern, but he groaned and shifted when the girls jostled him out. That was a good sign at least. Liz strapped him to the stretcher they had brought and gave BlackStar a wave. On Tsubaki’s careful order, they began to pull the wounded man up the slope.

“Kid,” Liz called.

“I know. I’m coming.” He supported his father on one side while Liz took the other. With Patty charging on ahead, whooping and yowling, they helped Lord Death up the mountainside.

“Stein and Mari went on ahead to save Maka and Kami,” Lord Death said when they reached the top. “Soul went after them. I couldn’t stop him.”

Kid glanced down the road. “I know, father, I know.”

“No one could have stopped him,” Liz said gently. “Soul is… beyond that now.”

“Maka’s all he has now,” Tsubaki said softly. “His family’s dead and he used to be a slave. No one else would ever accept that, either of those things, even though he is an Evans.” 

BlackStar took Tsubaki’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “I don’t want to see him lose her,” he said with uncharacteristic quietness.

Tsubaki nodded. “I don’t either,” she said and turned to Kid. “We need to go after him. I want to do whatever I can.” She fingered the old scar in her side where Yuca had shot her and the scar in her palm from the knife. “We’re not hurt now. We can do more,” she said fiercely.

“I know,” Kid said. “We have to go.”

“Wait!” Lord Death protested, but his son cut him off.

“Father, we brought two cars. You take the second one and go back with Spirit to Death City. He needs medical attention,” Kid said. “We will go one ahead after Soul and the others.”

“No!” Lord Death protested. “You and Spirit go back. I will go on ahead.”

“Dad, you’ve had your chances to take down Yuca and Yuca keeps squashing you like insects. If this is screwed up again, someone could die. Maka could die,” Kid said coldly. “Kami could die. Even Soul could be killed. There’s so much more at stake now.”

Lord Death looked as if he had been punched in the gut.

“Go back to Death City with Spirit and we will go on ahead,” Kid continued.

“But—” his father protested.

Liz put her hand on Kid’s shoulder as if to stop him from further tormenting his father. “Don’t worry, Lord Death,” she said with a smile. 

Then, without further ado, the children piled into the remaining car and roared off down the road. Lord Death was left staring at the dust trail they left behind. This was the moment that, as a school headmaster and parent, he applauded himself for doing such a good job raising these kids. Then, the pride gave over into fear. What if something happened? What if someone did die?

…

Kid drove with the pedal to the floor, screaming around turns and cornering like he was driving a refrigerator which the monster Excursion practically was. Liz, in the passenger seat beside him, was hanging onto the sideboard for dear life, but didn’t ask him to slow down. Tsubaki, BlackStar, and Patty were in the middle seat and the backseat was empty. Kid had no idea how he was going to fit Kami, Maka, Chrona, Soul, Stein, and Mari into his vehicle with only three open seats left. He figured they would work it out when they got there.

“Kid,” Tsubaki said suddenly.

“What?”

“What’s our plan?” she asked.

He half-turned to look at him, but a sharp cry from Liz brought his eyes back to the road. “What plan?”

“We don’t have a plan?!”

“Not really. I was going for go in guns blazing,” Kid glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “Maybe hoping for a little ghostly interference on our side, right, Patty?”

She just laughed, kicking the back of Liz’s seat.

Tsubaki rummaged through the backpack of weaponry Kid had brought and began going through it, checking the magazines and chambers and just making sure everything was in working order. When she was satisfied, she passed out the weapons with a sigh and handed Patty a baseball bat instead of a gun.

“Alright, Kid,” she said softly. “We’ll do it your way. This had better work.”

Little did she know, Kid was thinking the same thing too.

…

Stein and Mari hustled quickly along the road to the old asylum with their weaponry and first aid kit. Mari was pulling on her leather fingerless gloves for fighting and had scraped her blonde hair back from her face into a ponytail. Stein was smoking again to settle his ragged nerves.

“Stein?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think Yuca is planning?”

He puffed a ring of smoke. “It can’t be good.”

“She’s probably torturing Kami.”

“Probably…”

“You don’t think she’ll… have Maka raped again, do you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Mari let out a sigh of relief, but Stein wasn’t finished.

“I’m sure Yuca is torturing them. She’ll probably kill them both if we don’t hurry.”

Mari sucked in a sharp breath. “Let’s go!” she shouted and began to race off.

…

The Denbigh Asylum and the grounds surrounding it were just as sinister and haunting as they had been the first time Soul laid eyes on them back when he had still been a slave, been thinking about fleeing and leaving Maka to her fate, but now he charged brashly through the overgrown forest. He sensed something following him, a ghost maybe, maybe even little Kim-Jacquelyn, but he didn’t stop to talk with whoever or whatever was following. A branch of thorns clawed at his face, raking blood, but he hurried on as if it hadn’t even touched him.

A scream shattered the forest silence.

Soul gripped the gun in his hand tightly. “Hold on Maka, I’m coming.”

X X X

Yes, I do insist on multiple chapters of pulse-pounding suspense before getting to the real action so clam-up and get over it. You know how I am! 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	59. Chrona the Coward

Short chapter.

X X X

Beside her mother in the dark little cell, Maka was tied naked to a hard-backed wooden chair. Tear dripped down her swollen face and got in her mouth, but she couldn’t even taste the salt over all the blood. God, everything hurt. Yuca was tearing her body apart and Maka didn’t even know if anyone was coming to save her. She could be trapped in this hell until she died.

When Kuro and Nero had come for her in the room Ragnarok had raped her in, she had fought as hard as she could to get away from them, but it was hopeless. When she showed signs of escaping, they just reminded her that they had her mother and she had been forced to go along quietly. There was nothing she could do—nothing anyone could to, not here at least.

_Soul… where are you?_

“This used to be my cell,” Yuca said softly as if talking to herself behind their backs. “Did you know that?” She picked something up and set it down. “No, I suppose you don’t. Bitch…” She picked up something else, clipped it horrifyingly, and set it down again.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” Kami whispered to Maka suddenly. She hadn’t spoken since begging and screaming at Yuca to let Maka go to no avail. Her head was hanging low, curtained by her ash-blonde hair, hiding her beaten face from her daughter. Was she crying? “This is all my fault…”

“Mom, no it’s not…”

“It is, sweetie. I’m the one who accidentally knifed my sister when she was younger. If she could only have had a child, none of this ever would have happened.”

Maka sobbed.

In the darkness behind them, Yuca selected pliers from her array of torture tools and returned to the sides of her sister and niece. “Are you having a nice chat? Confessing your sins?” she asked them teasingly as she crossed the dark to the two chairs.

“Please, don’t do this,” Kami begged. “Kill me if you want, but let Maka go.”

“Mom—”

Yuca hummed in her chest. “There was a time when I would have, but not anymore.”

“Please,” Kami sobbed.

“No.” Then, Yuca caught one of Kami’s fingers with the pliers and cracked it brutally. 

Maka gasped out a scream, but Kami was silent. She was beyond pain, but Maka was not. Even though Yuca wasn’t hurting her right now, every crack of her mother’s body forced a cry from her mouth, but Yuca seemed to like that just as much. 

She chuckled as she worked. As she tortured her twin sister and niece, she was enjoying every minute of it. It was the hard-earned revenge of the woman scorned—her revenge. She found she was enjoying it even though she had never planned to hurt anyone. She had only wanted child, but she had been denied… again. So now, they had to pay and pay they would.

…

Crouched just outside the room where Yuca was torturing Maka and her mother, hunkered against the door with his hands over his ears, Chrona was desperately trying to decide what to do. Should he try to save them himself? Should he go to the kitchen for a snack and then run off into the forest in search of whoever was going to save Maka and try to warn them? Should he just stay here and listen to her die? Should he beg Yuca to release her on hands and knees? What should he do? How did he deal with this?

Behind him, Yuca’s two henchmen, Nero and Kuro, were seated with machine guns poised at the ready, just waiting to blow away anyone who came to save Maka and her mother on sight. Maka’s family and friends had no chance of getting passed the rain of bullets waiting to destroy them. 

Chrona whimpered as he heard Maka cry out sharply. 

What should he do? How did he deal with this? 

After all Maka had done and tried to do for him, he couldn’t just leave her to this torment and eventual death. He had to do something to help her! But what…? How could he possibly save her from the clutches of her aunt and those henchmen and all these guns. It was hopeless odds and Chrona had never been lucky enough to manage those sorts of odds. If he didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. He pressed his fingers into his ears, but the sounds seeped through.

Voices…

Maka’s cries…

The crunch of bones…

The shuffling of the machine guns on laps…

And the humming sound of energy and terror that surrounded the ruined asylum…

No one else seemed to hear these sounds or else they didn’t bother them as much as they bothered Chrona. He didn’t like the voices or the droning asylum. He wanted those sounds to stop! But they wouldn’t… they just went on and on without fading or increasing. Was this place haunted by patients and Maka’s fresh pain? Was that possible?

Quietly, Chrona whispered to the asylum’s decaying wall, “What do I do?”

An answer actually came to him, low enough that neither Nero nor Kuro heard it or maybe they just couldn’t hear it at all, just like they couldn’t hear the humming.

“You’ll have to kill them,” a little girl’s voice whispered. 

“Burn. The Asylum. To. The. Ground,” a second said, low and rough and harsh.

There was something similar about the two voices, yet not. (1)

“How?” Chrona whispered.

There was a light little girl’s laugh and then something clattered down from the ceiling. It was a lead pipe, rusted and bloody on one end. Nero and Kuro glanced at Chrona and the pipe, didn’t see the cowering boy-child as a threat no matter what he had in his hands, and went back to watching the mouth of the hallway for signs of movement that they would need to blow away.

Chrona wrapped his thin fingers around the cold of the pipe, lifted it gingerly, and gasped. It was so heavy! How could he use this to help Maka?

“You can do it,” the first voice said again.

“Bash. Their. Skulls. In.” 

Chrona wet his lips. Kuro and Nero had their backs to him. It would be almost easy to stand up and club them in the head and the pipe was so heavy that it was be even easier. Still, Chrona hesitated. “But, there’s two of them. What if I’m not fast enough?”

“You will be.”

“Smash. Them. Do. It.”

Chrona hesitated again. “But—”

“Do. It. Save. The. Girl. Burn. The. Asylum.”

Then, something but nothing gave Chrona a vicious shove and Chrona swung the pipe with his violet eyes squeezed tightly closed. The sound of the pipe meeting bone was horrible and Nero’s body folded like the old parchment it was. Kuro half-turned, wondering what had happened, and something shoved into Chrona again. He swung again, eyes still closed, and smashed Kuro in the face. At his feet, the two henchmen crumpled like wet paper dolls.

Gasping for breath, Chrona almost didn’t hear the voices again. 

“Good job. I knew you could do it.”

“Go! Go. And. Save. The. Girl.”

But Chrona peeked in through the window and saw Yuca carving into Kami’s naked breast and he couldn’t. He was just too afraid. So, he clutched the heavy pipe to his chest, turned, and ran. Kuro and Nero had been guarding the hallway. That meant someone was coming to save Maka and Kami. Chrona would meet them and help them and then, he could have Maka as his master, just as he had always wanted. He ran from the asylum as fast as he could.

“Kim?”

“This. Asylum. Will. Burn.”

Upstairs, the wires sparked but didn’t catch… not yet…

X X X

(1) Those of you who forgot, this is Kim-Jacquelyn’s speech pattern. The first is Jacquelyn and the second with all the periods is Kim.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	60. Second Arrival at the Asylum

Lots of character perspective switching because there’s nine million characters all over the place that need to be resolved a little before being completely shoved aside during the climax. So, bear with it and try to keep up!

X X X

Medusa had finally gotten this driving thing down when she saw two adults laden with first aid and weapons walking on the side of the road. It was a golden-haired woman with gloves and an eye patch and a grey-haired man with many scars on his face. What were they doing? Were they part of the group that had gone with Maka Albarn and Soul Evans to save her Chrona? Part of the group sent to fight and kill Yuca who only wanted her own precious child? Medusa found her foot tromping down on the gas. She wanted to run them over so badly, but at the last minute, she swerved an spared them. She saw their stricken faces in the rearview mirror.

A brush with death.

She smiled to herself lightly and then stepped on the brakes. She couldn’t let them kill Yuca. Yuca only wanted a child and Medusa could understand that. After all, she had crushed other people underfoot just so she would have a chance at seeing her precious Chrona again. The engine snarled like a beast as Medusa accelerated. The two adults stared at her, wide-eyed, uncomprehending as to why a perfect stranger would try to attack and kill them.

A the last moment, rather than be crushed beneath the wheels of her car, the man grabbed the woman’s hand and yanked her over the edge of the cliff behind them.

Medusa slammed on the brakes to prevent herself from following them, got out, and peered down over the edge of the ravine. The walls were jagged rock and covered in trees and vines. There was also a slow-moving stream at the bottom, winding lazily. It was possible they had survived the fall, but she didn’t see them if they were hanging onto the edge and if they had landed in the water then they were safely out of her way. 

The two bags they had been carrying were still on the road so Medusa peeked inside—weapons and a first aid box. Smiling, she loaded up the things into the back seat and continued her way to the asylum where Yuca had told her she was hiding out with Chrona and two other men. She had given Medusa a safe word to use to the men wouldn’t kill her and Medusa recalled it a few more times until she was certain she would remember even in crisis.

Then, Medusa headed for the asylum, for Chrona, for her baby… 

Maybe, she and Yuca weren’t so different after all.

…

Chrona exploded out of the asylum as if insanity were chasing him. (1) He tripped his way down the weedy drive, bare feet catching in the weeds and cutting on the stones. He was leaving a path of blood and destruction and pain in his wake, easily followed, so he hurried eve more. Suddenly, he tripped and smashed on his face in the dirt, sat up quickly, and wiped his nose. Blood? No, he was alright. Again, Chrona scrambled to his feet and started running.

“Where are you going? Why are you leaving?” the little voice reached out to him like a tangle of vines, snaring him.

“I… I have to! I have to get someone to help Miss Maka,” Chrona shouted back as he ran. 

“But, why don’t you save her?”

“I’m a coward!” Chrona protested. “I don’t know how to deal with this!”

“You could do it if you wanted. You could do it.”

“I can’t,” Chrona gasped out. “I’m not… I’m not brave enough…”

“Oh.” 

Suddenly, a terrible scream shattered the silence of the forest and Chrona felt the presence that had been with him vanish. He was suddenly very alone and very afraid in the middle of dark woods surrounding an abandoned insane asylum. When had his life become such a horror movie? Actually, being away from Ragnarok, this was more to his liking than the earlier horror, but he could do without the finer and more life-threatening points.

The violet-haired young slave tripped his way out of the dense brush and went sprawling on the hard black ribbon of macadam. The pipe he didn’t realize he had still been clutching clattered away on the pavement. Road? Where was he? Then, there was the screaming of brakes and he looked up into the headlights of an oncoming car. 

His heart stopped beating.

…

Soul pushed his way through the last of the brush and spilled into the overgrown weedy courtyard of the Denbigh Asylum. He looked up at the haunting grey-brick building and a shiver went down his spine. Where were Stein and Mari? There was no way he had beaten them here.

But he didn’t have time to waste waiting for them or for Kid. He had to save Maka before Yuca killed her and he had no doubt that she would.

He wouldn’t lose another important person even if it took his life. Soul tightened his grip on the revolver Stein had left him, went to the front door, remembered the traps from last time, and hefted himself in through the window just next to the door. The floor was littered with the skeletons of rats, broken furniture, and peeling decaying wallpaper. Soul made his way through the gloom of the ruined asylum, but he was wandering hopelessly. There was no sound of Maka screaming to follow as there had been the first time and he had no idea where Yuca might have her imprisoned.

He needed some help.

“Hello?” he called even though he wasn’t sure exactly who or what he expected to answer him. “Is anyone there?”

“Yes.”

“I need to find Maka. Can you help me?”

There was a moment of silence. “I can.”

“Where is she?”

“Locked up in the dark with her mother. Yuca is torturing her.”

Soul bit his lip. “Where is she? Please, tell me.”

“You have to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Burn. The. Asylum.”

“Kim?”

“No, I’m Jacquelyn.” 

Soul turned around and faced the little girl with the long brown hair, tattered shirt, and bloodstained thighs. 

“Are you going to save her again?”

“Yes. Where is she?”

“Follow me.”

Then, the little ghost girl trounced down the ruined hallway and Soul followed quickly after her. 

…

The river was cold and deep, dark and uncaring. Finally, a low sand bank appeared. 

“What was that? Who was that?” Mari panted as she hauled herself out of the cold slow-moving stream. Her wet blonde hair was all plastered to her face and her legs had smashed into countless sharp rocks, bleeding sluggishly now. “Stein?”

Beside her, the doctor dragged himself out, coughing and sputtering. “I have no idea. Who was that? She looked like she was gunning for us.”

“She was!” 

The two adults looked up at the steep stone canyon walls surrounding them. There wasn’t a handhold or foothold in , nor vine nor strong tree, nor anything else they could use to climb back out. They would have to continue down the river until they came to a place where they could get out easily.

“We’ve lost our weapons,” Mari murmured.

“And the first aid kit,” Stein agreed. 

“How will we get out of here?” she asked on the off chance he had a better plan that hers.

“We’ll have to go down the river until we reach a place where we can get out.”

“But Maka…”

“I know, I know,” Stein said sadly.

It had been a stretch to reach Maka and Kami in time when the excursion wrecked down the cliff, but now—swept down the river as they were—there was no way they’d be able to reach Maka in time now. Yuca would… they didn’t want to think about what Yuca would do.

…

Lord Death drove Spirit back to Death City, to the hospital because there was nothing else he could do. If he followed Kid, something bad could happen to Spirit as unconscious and defenseless as he was. Yuca was not above killing an unconscious man. So, with no other choice, Lord Death returned to the city to await the return of the others. Though, waiting was harder than going on the life-threatening venture and he wished to death that he could take his son’s place.

…

Maka sobbed. “Please, please, stop!” she begged her aunt.

Yuca didn’t respond to her niece’s cries, only continued carving into Kami’s back and chest.

“Please! Please, Yuca, stop it!”

“Stop crying! It’s pathetic.”

“Stop hurting her!” Maka begged.

“No. She deserves everything I’m giving her.”

“But—”

“Would you rather I hurt you?” The knife flashed silver even in the darkness.

Maka hesitated. 

“Well?”

“Y-yes,” she whispered.

…

Kid pulled into the courtyard of the ruined asylum and everyone piled out of the car. Patty cart-wheeled across the cobblestones, but Liz clapped her hand over her little sister’s mouth before she could start hollering and give away their arrival.

“Do you think Soul is here?” Tsubaki asked.

Kid looked up at the façade of the asylum. “I don’t know, but he didn’t have time to wait for us and we don’t have time to wait for him.” 

BlackStar hefted out the remaining weapons and handed a few over to those of them that could wield them the best. 

Kid checked the magazine out of habit and then nodded. “Alright, let’s go. Patty, you lead the way.”

The girl nodded vigorously. Since she had saved them from almost certain-death the last time they were here, Kid and the others decided it would be best to just let her lead off the bat. Maybe they would have another miraculous ghostly experience. That was about all they could hope for—there wasn’t much hope left for this situation.

…

The wires sparked again.

X X X

(1) I just realized that I unknowingly followed a strain of Soul Eater. The madness! And the insanity in the insane asylum! Sometimes my own subconscious wows me. Did anyone else notice that and I’m just slow?

Phew, I think that was everybody! At least, I hope it was…

Questions, comments, concerns?


	61. Attack on the Asylum!

Man, don’t I feel stupid… EVERYONE noticed my asylum-insanity pun, BUT ME!

X X X

“Here, here,” Jacquelyn said eagerly as she floated over the rubble. 

Yuca’s two henchmen were lying on the ground, unconscious, and it looked as if someone had bashed them in the head, but who? Who was here in the asylum that was on Soul’s side? Was it Stein and Mari, having beaten him here?

“No,” Jacquelyn said as if reading his mind.

“No?”

“It was the boy’s who’s been here all long.”

“All along?” 

“Mm-hmm,” Jacquelyn said with a nod. “He had pretty purple hair, but he’s run away now. He went to get help. You must have just missed him.”

“Chrona,” Soul said and tightened his grip on his gun. After all Maka had done for him, Chrona had run away and left her. Soul nearly forgot that he had once almost done the same thing, but he pushed all those thoughts away. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Here,” Jacquelyn said again and pointed to the door that the henchmen had been guarding.

Suddenly, there was a shattering scream.

Jacquelyn’s face went milk white and her eyes widened. “Hurry, hurry! Here!” she shouted to Soul and then she was gone.

…

Medusa slammed on the brakes, swerving wildly. Her son was in the road! There was no doubt in her mind that that was Chrona. Who else on this plane of reality had such soft violet hair? She knew it was her son! She leaped from the car, barely putting it in park, and ran to her child’s side.

Chrona was staring at her, wide-eyed, and why shouldn’t he be startled and afraid. He had just had a brush with death, like those adults walking the road. 

Medusa dropped to her knees and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly and sobbing. “Chrona, Chrona, it’s me! My name is Medusa and I’m your mother.”

Chrona’s body tensed and he tried to pull away. 

She let him and cupped his face gently, taking him in. God, he was a beautiful child with his cream-colored skin and that soft violet hair to match his eyes. 

“You’re my… my mother?”

“Yes!” She stroked his hair back from his face.

“And you came to save me?”

“Yes, yes, baby. I had to trade you for Maka, but—”

“You what?!” Chrona pulled sharply away from her, stumbled to his feet, grabbed up his lead pipe, and brandished it at his mother. “You were the one who traded Maka?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t understand,” Medusa murmured.

“We have to save her!”

“Sweetie, she’s nothing. She wasn’t going to save you.”

“She was!” Even Yuca had tried to undermine his faith in Maka, but it wasn’t something that just couldn’t be done. Maka was a precious person to Chrona and nothing would ever change that. She was important to him and she was the first person to ever care about him so… Chrona bit his lip and shoved aside the coward in him. “Start the car. We have to save her.”

“But Chrona—”

Chrona swung the pipe wildly. “Do it!”

With nothing else to do, Medusa climbed behind the wheel, started the car, and pushed open the passenger side door for Chrona. Her son got in, still brandishing his pipe in that small space. She started the car and headed to the asylum even though she didn’t need to. She had her son in her hands so what was she doing? Why was she risking everything for Maka? For poor sweet Soul Evans, maybe, but not for this lying little girl-child. Yet, here she was. Maybe she and Yuca were pretty different after all.

…

The scream came again, ragged and hoarse with impossible pain and fear. It was the scream of someone dying! 

“Maka,” Soul gasped. He threw himself at the door and it spilled open, unlocked. “Stop,” he shouted and brandished his weapon at the shadowy room. There was a lamp on behind the two chair, casting a sick yellow glow over everything, and the smell of blood was so strong. 

What had Yuca done?

Yuca turned her head, pale hair falling over her shoulders and green eyes shining. She looked like Kami back when she hated Soul for being a slave. Then, she grinned and twisted her remaining hand and Maka let out another gut-wrenching scream.

“Stop it! I’ll shoot!” Soul shouted.

“So shoot me,” Yuca said flatly. “Do you think I care? What do I have to live for? Those men out there? They’re failures. I have no child. I’m already dead.” She spread her arms. “So, young man, what do you have to live for? This girl? Your family? Your friends? You’re as dead as me.”

Then, she pushed her hand forward and Maka screamed again.

“What are you doing?” Soul demanded. He didn’t want to shoot her. As messed up as she was, he understood what she wanted—a child, a family, someone to love. He had been denied all those things, too. “Stop it!”

“Shoot me, Soul Evans. It’s the only thing you can do or I will finish what I started here.”

“Soul,” Maka croaked. Blood trailed from her mouth. “Soul…”

It was then that his eyes finally adjusted to the dimness and he saw it. Yuca had pushed a knife deep into Maka’s lower stomach and was twisting it deeper and deeper. There was blood all over the floor like wax from a blood-red candle that had burned too low.

“No,” he whispered.

Yuca looked back at him sadly. “All I wanted was a child. Something so simple and so out of reach. Do you know what that feels like? And my own twin sister did this to me, just like I’m doing to Maka. She tied me down and stabbed into me, Soul. I am merely returning her kindness. Now, Maka can be just like me.” Yuca pulled the knife out. 

Maka choked out a gasp of agony.

Yuca lifted the knife over her head.

“Stop!” Soul shouted.

She smiled crookedly at him.

He pulled the trigger.

And Yuca plunged the knife into her own breast a second after the bullet exploded into her chest. She crashed backwards, blood bubbling from her mouth. Unlike Wes, her death was fast and without cruelty to haunt Soul’s dreams. 

And so, the woman scorned passed into dark oblivion.

…

The gunshot shattered the silence. 

“What was that?” Kid looked around quickly, but the sound was reverberating off the walls, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Gunfire,” BlackStar said.

“Could it be Soul?” Tsubaki asked.

Kid nodded. “Let’s hurry!”

“WAIT!” Patty screamed.

A wall of fire erupted in front of them, licking up through the floor.

…

“This! Asylum! Will! Burn!”

“What about Soul, Kim?”

“Not. Surviving.”

“Can we help?”

“No.”

“But…”

“Fire. Cleanses. Free. Now.”

…

Soul charged to Maka’s side. Gasping in agony, she choked up blood and called what might have been him name. “You’re going to be okay,” he choked out, practically sobbing, as he dropped to his knees in front of her. He raked her hair back from her pale face. God, her skin was so cold. “Just hold on. I’m going to get you out.” His fingers were numb and he couldn’t get the ropes untied. “God!”

Maka choked, eyes falling closed.

“No, hold on!” He glanced around desperately. He couldn’t shoot the ropes. He’d hurt her, but Yuca’s knife… it was sticking out of her chest like an accusing finger just pointing at him. He grabbed the knife, ripped it from her body, and dashed back to Maka’s side. He sawed through the ropes and dragged her cold body into his arms. “You’re going to be okay, just hang in there.”

She smiled faintly, blood painting her lips.

He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped her in it, pressing at the gaping wound in her stomach. “Just hold on,” Soul begged her. “I’ll get you some help. You’ll be okay, Maka.”

“Soul…”

He hefted her in his arms and then went to Kami’s side, groping for a pulse. Her flesh was like ice and there was nothing alive beneath her flesh. He sucked in a sharp breath, just like his mother—dead. He cradled Maka closer as if his presence could keep the life inside her body, but that had never worked before.

“Soul…”

He dashed to the door and rushed into the hall. There was a wall of encroaching flames at either end of the hallway. The flames had already devoured the body of one henchman and were working the way up the legs of the other. 

God, there was no way out! 

He was trapped and they were going to burn. The asylum was burning, just like Kim-Jacquelyn had said to him when he first met her in the woods. Soul back into the room, slammed the door, and then stared at it. Fire was an unstoppable force. There was nothing he could do to save them. They were going to die here. 

“Soul…” 

“Yeah, Maka?”

“Where do we go when we die?” she asked him and it was the same thing Kim-Jacquelyn had asked him even though she had never given him a chance to answer. 

Soul cradled Maka against his chest, sat down in the corner of the room, held her in his lap gently, and whispered, “I don’t know, Maka. I don’t know.” Then, he pressed his hands to the sluggishly bleeding wound in her stomach even though they were going to die. “Where do you think we go?”

She was quiet a moment and he feared that she had died in his arms, but he could feel her heart beating. “I don’t know either,” she said finally. “I don’t know either, Soul.”

…

Kid hustled the others from the asylum and they stood in the courtyard and watched the flames begin to lick out of the roof. Plumes of thick black smoke rose into the sky like filthy mold, like pollution in something pure and beautiful.

“What if Soul’s still in there?” Tsubaki asked nervously, staring up at the burning building.

“We should go in and look for him,” BlackStar said. “Patty can—”

“No!” Patty shouted. “All the people in there are gone.”

“What about Soul and Maka?” Liz asked her sister.

“I don’t know,” Patty said, softly for once.

“Kid,” Liz said desperately.

“I know, Liz, but… if we go in… we’ll all die. There’s nothing we can do except hope they make it out on their own.”

There hadn’t been much hope for this venture to start with, but it was all they had now.

“No,” Liz whispered, eyes welling with tears. “No!” she screamed.

She raced towards the building, but Kid caught her in his arms, cradling her against his chest while she fought him and screamed and cried. Deep down, they all wanted to go in and look for Maka, Soul, and Kami, but they all knew it was hopeless.

Then, at the end of the drive, there was a snarling sound and something kicked up plumes of dust.

“What is that?” BlackStar shouted and dove to cover Tsubaki.

“I think it’s…” she began, but didn’t get to finish because a car went zooming past them like crazy. (1) “Was that…?”

…

Chrona had shoved his mother over out of his way and stomped the accelerator when he saw the smoke reaching up from the asylum. The ghosts had warned him that the asylum was going to burn, but he hadn’t listened. Now, Maka was in there and probably trapped by the fire. He had to save her!

“Chrona! Stop! What are you doing?” Medusa screamed, but he was beyond listening.

He braced himself and charged the car through rotted walls and flames alike, right into the heart of the asylum where Yuca had been holding Maka hostage. The car finally hit a support beam, crumpled like paper, and came to a complete stop, but Chrona could see the room where Maka was. The fire that had been licking at the door had been put out by the car, but not for long. 

How much time did they have before the fire hit the gas tank and exploded? Not long enough.

Chrona vaulted from the car, tearing out of his mother’s grip, and ran to the door. He wrenched it open, screaming Maka’s name, but her chair was empty. Had someone beaten him to the rescue? “Maka!” he screamed. “Where are you?”

“Chrona, stop it! We have to get out of here!”

“Maka!”

Through the smoke, Maka’s slave Soul appeared with Maka cradled in his arms. “Chrona?” Soul whispered, incredulously.

“You have Maka?” Chrona demanded.

Soul nodded.

“We have to get out of here!” Chrona shouted and grabbed Soul’s wrist. “Let’s go!” 

Then, he flew from the room with Hell licking at his heels. Soul raced after him, carrying Maka in his arms tightly. They tore past Medusa, still shouting for her son, but Chrona turned back for her a moment later. He grabbed his mother’s hand and the four of them raced through the path the car had carved through the Denbigh Asylum. 

They burst out, smoking and singed, but alive. 

And that was enough—that was more than they had all hoped for.

Kid and the others quickly put out the ends of Chrona’s burning pants and Medusa’s long dress and patted out Soul’s flaming silver hair. Then, they all stared at each other before looking back at the asylum quickly. There was a small explosion as the car’s gas tank caught fire and a part of the roof crashed down. The ruined dark building seemed filled with light for a moment, little balls of light that were hovering just above the roof. Then, there was a sudden gust of cold wind and all the little lights were gone. The asylum remained standing for a moment longer and then collapsed completely in a wave of smoke, grit, and heat.

That was it. It was over.

Everything was over.

Maka was cold in Soul’s arms.

X X X

(1) And this is a little joke on the anime because Kid goes screaming right past Ragnarok and Chrona during the battle to stop the Kishin from awakening and now Chrona is going screaming by Kid. It was ironic and funny, I thought. 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	62. Ambulance Chasers

**Alexander:** I know you were on chapter one when your review, but hopefully you’ll get here eventually. Anyway, I totally loved your review! Now you’ve gone and given me a swelled head. Most of your questions will be (and have been) answered as this story progressed, but I hoped you enjoyed finding out. I look forward to hearing from you in the future! Ciao!

 **EVERYONE!** You are all either very silly or very slow. What’s with all the ‘Where is Kami?’ Kami is dead. Did everyone miss Soul checking for a pulse and finding nothing? She is very dead and in a crisis, you do not waste time gathering up dead people. They’re dead—they’re beyond help. Was the chapter just so fast and gripping that no one paid attention? SO THERE. Thank you!

Aren’t I tricky? Chrona turned out to be the big hero at the end, blasting in to save Soul and Maka. Who saw that coming? Don’t fib now…

Very short chapter. Revising the climax because I like to have the “aftershock at the hospital” all in one chapter. I have a pattern… I’m predictable. So deal with it.

X X X

“Soul, what happened to Maka?” Liz asked when Soul quickly laid her down on the hood of Kid’s still-warm car. The bright light of the burning asylum illuminated her wound in all it’s terrible glory. Liz gasped and immediately shoved him aside, pressing both hands on the wound. “We need a first aid kit! Now!”

Kid darted up, took one look at Maka, and tore to the back of his car. He threw everything out, digging under the supplies and weapons he had brought, and hauled out the bright red kit in his haste. Then, he threw it down at Liz’s side, yanked it open, and handed her a few pads of gauze.

“Tsubaki, I need you here,” Liz shouted.

The dark-haired girl instantly came up beside her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Press here,” Liz said. Then, she shouted to Kid. “Call an ambulance!”

“But we’re so far out—”

“We’ll go halfway to meet them,” Liz told him sharply. “She won’t make the wait or the drive back. Hurry up!”

Kid scrambled to do her bidding, shoving BlackStar and Patty out of his way.

“Tsubaki, we’re going to have to wrap her up tight to try to stop the bleeding,” Liz continued. “We need fabric. BlackStar! Give me your shirt!”

BlackStar pulled off his shirt and even began ripping it without being asked. As the strips came apart, he handed them to Liz.

“Soul, help us sit her up,” Liz ordered. 

Together, Soul, Tsubaki, and Liz wrapped Maka’s middle tightly to staunch the flow of blood, but her face was still frighteningly cold and pale. Her pulse was slow, but it was there. 

“Will that work?” Soul asked Liz.

“We need to get her real attention. Kid, the ambulance?”

“On its way.”

“Good, everybody in the car!”

“There’s no way we’ll all fit,” Chrona protested.

“Just get in! Pretend you’re a sardine!” Liz snapped and gave him a push. 

“Sardine!” Patty shouted.

Liz shoved her little sister as well and then grabbed BlackStar by his elbow. “Soul sit up front with Maka, hold her steady, don’t jostle. Kid, drive, but not like James Bond. Getting in an accident won’t save her,” she said. “Hurry up! Time is of the essence!”

“Got it,” Kid said quickly, jumping to attention.

Kid leaped behind the wheel. Soul lifted Maka from the hood and slid into the passenger seat. Liz slammed the door for him and crammed Medusa, Chrona, Patty, BlackStar, Tsubaki, and herself into the remainder of the car. (This was made easier by the empty trunk space of the SUV because Kid had torn everything out and left it there in his haste. He even backed over these things as he raced back down the drive leaving the burning asylum in his wake.)

They met the ambulance near the place where Yuca had shoved Lord Death’s Excursion over the cliff and did a mad Chinese fire drill of passing off Maka, shoving Soul and Tsubaki into the ambulance with her, and then roaring off after the ambulance as it made its way back to Death Hospital.

“So,” Kid began as they drove, hoping to ease the tension. “Chrona, are you alright? Yuca didn’t hurt you, did she?”

Chrona shook his head. “No, I’m okay. I’m better away from Ragnarok.”

Liz stroked Chrona’s violet hair. “I can tell. You look so much better.”

Chrona smiled. “Maka will be okay, right?”

“She’s a fighter,” was all Liz said.

Silence reigned.

“So, who are you?” BlackStar asked the strange woman sitting beside him. 

“I’m Medusa, Chrona’s mother,” the golden-haired golden-eyed woman explained quietly. She hadn’t realized how close all these children were until now. They really did care for each other and for her Chrona and Chrona cared for them.

“Chrona’s mother?” Liz repeated.

Suddenly, Kid’s phone began ringing. Kid took his phone from his pocket, passed it to Liz, and let her answer. It was Lord Death. 

“Lord Death,” Liz began, but his father started giving her an earful before she could speak. “Yes… Yes. We’re okay, but… Yes. Spirit’s alright then. That’s good, but… yes, okay. I don’t know where Stein and Mari are. We didn’t run into them, but… Yes, alright…”

Lord Death wasn’t letting her get in much of a word edgewise.

Kid took the phone from Liz and said shortly, “Father, we’re on our way to the hospital.”

“What? Why?”

“Maka was hurt.”

“And Kami?”

Kid glanced at Liz. “I don’t know. She’s not with us.”

“Jesus,” Lord Death said. “Alright, I’m here with Spirit so I’ll see you when you get to the hospital.”

“Yes,” Kid said and hung up.

Then, they resumed chasing the ambulance.

…

Stein and Mari arrived at the asylum, finally, to find it nothing but smoking rubble. There were supplies all over the weedy courtyard and they weren’t sure exactly what had happened. Only one thing was clear and that was that the final battle was over.

X X X

**EVERYONE!** You are all either very silly or very slow. What’s with all the ‘Where is Kami?’ Kami is dead. Did everyone miss Soul checking for a pulse and finding nothing? She is very dead and in a crisis, you do not waste time gathering up dead people. They’re dead—they’re beyond help. Was the chapter just so fast and gripping that no one paid attention? SO THERE. Thank you!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	63. Aftershock at Death Hospital: Pt III

Yow! Dual update. It’s because I’m in a bit of a hurry to get this posted so I can dedicate all my attention to Heavy Heart to Carry which I’m having great fun writing. So, anyway, the predictable part that bleeds over into all my stories—AFTERSHOCK at the HOSPITAL! Is anyone here part of my major following? Have you noticed that I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have an aftershock at the hospital. I have no idea why this is, but it is!

X X X

Maka was floating in darkness. Where was she? What was she doing? Why was she here? She felt her body dripping and pressed her hands to her naked abdomen. Blood? Why was she bleeding? What had happened to her? What was going on?

The last thing she remembered was…

“Where do we go when we die?”

She somehow weightlessly turned around and her feet found something solid in the darkness. Standing there, she stared into the darkness for whoever had spoken. It had almost sounded like her voice, but not… Who was it? Who was there? Hello? 

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Where do you think we go when we die, Maka?”

She choked and suddenly her voice was there in her throat again. “Mom?”

“Where do we go, Maka?”

“I don’t know… Heaven? Hell?”

“Ah, where do you think I will go?”

“Mom—”

“Really sweetheart. Where do you think I will go? Heaven or Hell?”

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“You know what I did to Yuca. I hurt her on purpose. Do you know why, Maka?”

“No, please…”

“I was jealous of her. She was so beautiful, so much more loved than I was, and then she found that wonderful boyfriend and they were going to have beautiful children. I was jealous and I couldn’t take it so… I stabbed her in the stomach, in the womb…”

Maka sobbed.

“Cruel of me, right, sweetie? And then she was jealous of me and my family. If I had just let it go, none of this would have happened…”

“You can’t—”

“You know what, sweetie, I think your mama’s going to Hell.”

“No, Mom—”

“I think so. I think that’s where I’m going to go. I’m a bad person, honey. I caused all of this…”

“Mom,” Maka whispered.

Then, the darkness flooded around her and the solid surface beneath her feet vanished. She fell… down, down, down… just like in the car when it wrecked, down, down, down… then, the smashing impact when she hit the bottom. Was this a dream? They say when you fall in a dream and hit bottom, you really do die?

“Where will I go when I die?” Maka whispered.

“To Heaven…” The voice called her back.

…

Soul was sitting at Maka’s bedside, holding her hand gently in his own now-healed-straight pianist fingers. Across from him was her father, Spirit, with the gash in his forehead stitched neatly and covered with a Band-Aid. They were both waiting for her to awaken while the others sorted things out in the waiting room. 

Finally, they saw her lips move faintly and her little voice was like a sigh. “Where will I go when I die?” she whispered.

Spirit choked, blue eyes flooding with tears.

But Soul had an answer for her now. “To Heaven,” he whispered back to her.

Her green eyes fluttered open, out of focus for a small moment, and then focused on his face. “Hey Soul,” she murmured and smiled faintly at him. “Do you really think I’ll go to Heaven when I die?”

Soul nodded and stroked her hair back from her face. “I do, but not right now, Maka, not right now…”

She grinned. “I know, Soul,” she said softly. “I have to get Chrona to his mother. I have things to do.”

He smiled. God, this girl… she was so wonderful, so beautiful, so everything! “Yeah, that’s right, Maka. That’s right,” he whispered. Then, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently as he had seen his father do to his mother before they were killed by Wes.

She smiled at him again. Then, her eyes drifted closed again and the morphine took her back into a deep sleep.

“She’s alright,” Spirit sobbed. “Thank god…”

Soul nodded and stroked her knuckles as she slept.

“Soul,” Spirit said suddenly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving my little girl… again…”

Soul looked up into Spirit’s face. “Well, she saved me again.”

Spirit met Soul’s red eyes. “You… care for her?”

Soul glanced down at Maka’s beautiful sleeping face and absently brushed some blonde tresses out of her face. “I do,” he confessed. “I care for her a lot. I really do.”

“Soul, do you…?”

The albino youth glanced up at Maka’s father.

“Do you love her?”

Soul’s eyes widened and he choked on the air in his lungs. “What?”

“Do you love my daughter? Truthfully?”

“I… I…”

Spirit sighed. “You don’t have to tell me, Soul. But I want you to know that I like you, young man, and I know my Maka likes you too.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Spirit got up and put his hands on Soul’s narrow shoulders, “that I give you my blessing.” 

Then, Stein knocked on the door and asked for Soul and Spirit to come out into the waiting room to discuss things with the others. They had to talk about what happened at the asylum, about the fire, about Yuca’s death, and about what had happened to Kami. 

Soul kissed Maka’s hand again and followed Spirit out of the room.

…

In the large comfortable waiting room outside the intensive care wing, Kid was standing up, talking to his father a little ways from the others. Patty and Liz were crouching at the table of children’s toys and books and Patty was very excitedly pouring over everything scattered there. BlackStar was sitting with Tsubaki on the ugly but comfortable couch. Mari was scraping her hair out of her face using her reflection in one of the wide windows. Chrona and his mother, Medusa, were sitting close together, facing each other with their knees touching, whispering. Beyond the glass, Death City was lit up with tinseled lights and very peaceful-looking.

“Okay,” Stein said and clapped his hands. “Can everyone come over here? We need to talk.”

Everyone crowded around and it was a little like an exhausted circus. 

“Now, Soul, can you tell us what happened?” Mari asked. “From the top?”

Soul took a steadying breath. “After the accident, I left Lord Death and pursued you to the asylum.”

“Thank god for that,” Stein said and tilted his chin at Medusa. “She tried to kill us and we had to dive off the road. We never would have made it in time.”

“I’m sorry,” Medusa whispered. “Yuca would only let me see my son if I did what she asked and she asked me to—”

“We know, Medusa,” Lord Death said softly. “We understand. Soul, please continue.”

“There, I found Yuca’s two henchmen unconscious in the hallway.”

“And, Chrona, you said you were the one who clocked them, right?” Stein asked the violet-haired boy.

“Y-yes,” Chrona said. “I had to try to save Miss Maka.”

Medusa squeezed his shoulder.

Soul continued, “I crashed into the room and I talked to Yuca for a moment, demanding that she stop. She wouldn’t though. She was stabbing Maka in the stomach, twisting it around… She told me that Kami had done the same thing to her when they were children.”

“And Kami was already dead at this time?” Stein asked.

Spirit made a broken sound.

“I think so,” Soul said softly. “Either way, once Yuca killed herself—”

“Yuca killed herself?!” Mari interrupted.

Soul nodded. “She lifted the knife up and I thought she was going to stab Maka so I shot her, but then she plunged the knife into her chest instead.”

Lord death shook his head. “After all that, she killed herself.”

“She told me that since she didn’t have anything to live for, she was dead anyway,” Soul explained as best he could. “Then, she did it.”

“And then?” Lord Death prompted.

“I had to pull the knife out of her so I could cut Maka free. I saw her wound and pressed my jacket to it, but it didn’t do anything. I knew I had to get her out, but the hallway was full of fire.”

Lord Death turned to his son. “You said that when you came into the asylum to search for Soul, Maka, and Kami, you didn’t get far before the fire started.”

Kid nodded. “I decided to get everyone out. If we stayed to look for them, we all could have died.”

Liz hugged herself tightly. She had wanted to run into that raging fire regardless to save her precious friends. Patty touched her sister’s elbow and smiled faintly and there was the undamaged Patty again, just for a moment.

“And that was when Chrona arrived?” Mari asked.

“Yes,” Tsubaki said.

“And you drove the car right into the asylum to carve a path through the flames?” Lord Death asked.

Chrona nodded. “I wasn’t thinking. I just… acted.”

“We’d be dead if it wasn’t for you,” Soul murmured. “Thank you, Chrona.”

Chrona flushed. “It… it was nothing.”

“It was something alright,” Lord Death said cheerfully. “You’re practically a hero.”

Chrona’s face glowed. “A hero?”

Soul smiled. “You bet!”

“Then, Liz did her best to attend Maka’s wound and you called an ambulance to meet you halfway,” Stein asked.

“Yeah.”

“What about you guys, Stein?” Tsubaki asked. “What happened to you?”

“I told you we had to dive off the road. Well, the river swept us all off course and then we had to walk to a place where we could climb out. Then, we hitchhiked to the asylum, but it was nothing but smoking ruins by then so we hitchhiked back here to Death City,” Stein explained. “Mari rightly assumed you’d all be at the hospital.”

“I’m sorry,” Medusa said again.

“It’s alright,” Stein said with a shrug.

“All that matters is Yuca is dead and the rest of us are alive. It’s over now,” Mari whispered. Her eyes filled. “It’s really over.”

Lord Death put his arms around his son and Mari, hugging them. Tsubaki swept BlackStar and Soul under her arms and pressed into Lord Death. Slowly, the group-hug came together until they each felt less like lonely singular people and more like a family. Well, that’s what they were, Soul supposed. None of them had anyone else except each other.

Lord Death was right. 

It was over.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	64. In the Time that Followed

The next chapter will be the last one—chopping it off (finally) at sixty-five! This was the longest story ever! But, in contrast, this chapter is very short. It’s a set-up/filler for the next chapter. (Those of you who know my style know what’s coming in the next chapter…) Are you prepared?!

AN AWESOME REVIEW FROM THE LAST CHAPTER THAT I JUST HAD TO SHARE! 

**Soharu87:** "Stein and Mari arrived at the asylum, finally, to find it nothing but smoking rubble. There were supplies all over the weedy courtyard and they weren't sure exactly what had happened. Only one thing was clear and that was that the final battle was over."

... reaction. it... it’s gone? You mean... we climbed up the cliff walked three miles, nearly got hit by a car, fell off a cliff and almost DIED, got swept down the river and nearly DROWNED, walked another 5 miles ACHING and WET trying to find a way out, climbed back up the wall of TORTUROUS rock, then walked all the way back here FOR NOTHING!

... figures. oh well, let’s go home. they could have at least CALLED! monsters...

BRILLIANT, NO? How on earth did I overlook that perspective? Thank you, Soharu, for pointing that out!

X X X

In the time that followed, many things were sorted out.

…

Lord Death continued to run his academy as headmaster. Mari continued to teach during the week and run her little thrift store on the weekends and Maka was a frequent shopper there. Spirit mourned Kami’s death silently and grievously to himself. Stein kept on smoking and working at the hospital. The adults were alright and so were the kids.

…

Maka’s phone rang. 

“Hello?”

“Maka, it’s Papa.”

“Hi Daddy!”

“Would you like to go to the movies with me tonight? There’s a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show at First Cinema.”

“That sounds fantastic! I’ll bring some candy if you buy the popcorn.”

“Deal, sweetie. I’ll pick you up at eight and maybe tomorrow we can go to your favorite bookstore.”

“That’d be even better!” Maka laughed.

“I love you, baby,” Spirit whispered.

“I love you too, Papa,” she said without hesitation. 

Though Kami was dead, it wasn’t much of a loss to Maka, who had never really known her mother. Spirit, though, was depressed over the death of the woman he had always loved and still loved. He and Maka had a fantastic new relationship with his loving daughter.

Sometimes, Maka prepared dinner and invited her father to dinner where she never had before. Sometimes, Spirit just dropped by with a book as a present for his beautiful daughter who had suffered so much at the hands of her mother. 

Either way, they got along smashingly.

…

Kid had just gotten out of the shower when there was a knock on the door and because he never denied his girls and had also learned a lesson about towels falling inappropriately he put on his cotton pajama pants before calling, “Come in!”

Liz poked her head around the threshold. “Um, Kid, can I talk to you a minute?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. 

She came in and perched on the vanity, something she had never done before. Her thin fingers fiddled with the hem of her tank top. “Um, Kid… Do you…? I mean, I…”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Liz, what is it?”

She looked up into his beautiful golden eyes and that gave her the courage to spit out what she wanted to say. “I… I love you, Kid!”

For a moment, he stared at her blankly.

“I’m sorry!” Liz stuttered when he didn’t respond immediately. She got up from the vanity and turned to leave.

Kid caught her arm, pulled her back, and clasped her tightly against his chest. “Don’t go, Liz. Wait! I’m sorry, but you just… surprised me is all,” he said quickly.

Liz stared up into his face, feeling her cheeks go pink at his closeness. “Kid…”

He dipped his face and kissed her gently.

Inside, she just melted.

This was everything she had ever wanted, hoped for, and more.

Death the Kid, Liz, and Patty returned to their happy lives in Kid’s mansion. Patty was still her damaged and hyperactive self. Liz and Kid were the only ones who really changed and everyone could say it was for the better.

…

Soul “Eater” Evans, heir to the entire Evans family fortune and the estate as well, found himself with more than he knew what to do with and incredibly alone about an hour away from the rest of his friend-family. His parents and Wes were buried with the dead babies in the little cemetery out back, hidden by the high hedges. Within a week, lonely, he invited—more like begged—Medusa and Chrona to move in with him, but it still wasn’t enough. 

He missed Maka. He missed her like he was missing a part of himself.

“Why don’t you just…” Medusa began.

“What?”

“Why don’t you just go live with her? Chrona and I will stay here to watch over the house,” she offered.

By now, she and Chrona were as close as if they had never been apart all those years. They were a family again and they wouldn’t have given it up for the world, even go through every horrible thing they had been through to get to this point.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

Medusa barked a laugh. “Please, Soul, after all you and Maka have done for us, it’s the least we can do.”

“Really?” he asked, brightening.

“Oh yes,” Medusa said. “It would be no trouble.”

“You’re sure?”

She pushed him. “Go on, Soul. Go on. For once in your life, do something to make yourself happy!”

And so, Soul did. He called Maka and asked if he could come back to live with her. He tried not to let himself think about the tone her voice took on when she said so happily, “Yes, Soul! Of course!” He thought about what her father had said and even gave Soul his blessing. Did Maka…?

…

Tsubaki yawned and stretched. It was wonderful to sleep in on your day off, especially since sleeping in for her was rather rare. BlackStar was normally up and about and making a terrible ruckus bright and early, but today, he was quiet. She sat up, tank top clinging to her breasts, and shrugged into her robe. She knotted the belt and went out into the living room.

BlackStar was quietly watching television, fingering the remote Tsubaki used to control him when he got out of hand and alternately touching the collar at his throat. 

“BlackStar?” Tsubaki called.

He turned, eyes bright. “Hi lovely,” he said, voice uncharacteristically soft.

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“About what?” she asked and sat down beside him on the couch.

“I’ve been quiet lately and listened to you, so about the collar…”

Tsubaki touched it gently. “I know you have. It was nice of you to let me sleep in.”

He grinned. “A big star like me is always considerate.”

Tsubaki smiled.

BlackStar leaned in and kissed her lightly before pulling back. She pressed her fingers to her lips and breathed his name. Then, her face flamed cherry-red and BlackStar vaulted off the couch with a yell. His voice echoed and bounced as he jumped around, shrieking and shouting like a monkey. Sighing, Tsubaki pinched the bridge of her nose and picked up the remote.

“BlackStar! Sit!”

It seemed he wasn’t ready to be without the collar yet.

…

Soul arrived at Maka’s little house where he had spent so much time with the same satchel slung over his shoulder. He knocked on the door and entered Maka’s lovely light-filled house. It was so different without her posing as a pregnant woman. 

The shadow Yuca had cast over everyone’s lives was gone.

“Maka?” he called.

“Oh, Soul! You’re here?” She stuck her head around the threshold of the kitchen. There was flour on her cheeks and in her hair.

“Yeah,” he said and chuckled. “What are you doing?”

“Baking.”

“I think you might be doing it wrong.”

“Why is that?”

He approached her and brushed some flour off her shoulders. “You’re all… floured,” he said by way of explanation. 

She giggled. “I know. I had a little accident.”

Soul stared down into her eyes and she looked up into his and it was one of those clichéd moments that really did happen in real life. His hand was still resting on her shoulder lightly, fingers touching her face tenderly. Suddenly, Soul cleared his throat and walked past her into the kitchen. 

“So, what are you baking?”

“Uh… cookies…”

It seemed that while Liz and Kid could admit their feelings, Soul and Maka still weren’t at that point yet. They would need little more time.

X X X

Those of you that know me know what’s coming next!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	65. Epilogue: Soul Evans and Maka Albarn

Last chapter! 

Very important classic author’s note at the end!

X X X

Soul had been living with Maka a little over the week, still sleeping in the living room on an air mattress because Maka didn’t have a spare bedroom, but he didn’t mind. At night, he listened to Maka’s insomnia keeping her up again and sometimes, he came into her room to keep her company. They would sit on her bed, facing each other, and just talk. They talked about everything—Soul’s dead parents and Wes, Kami and Yuca, even Ragnarok, and sometimes the beautiful moon and how nice it would be to take a trip to the ocean. 

It was on one such night that Maka decided to spill her guts. Soul had been coming into her room to talk with her all week so she knew he would be coming in tonight without fail. Tonight, it wasn’t the insomnia keeping her up.

“No more excuses,” she whispered to herself. “I know exactly what I’m going to say.”

Then came his trademark light knock on her door and all those perfect things she was going to say just flew out of her mind. She stared helplessly at the door, wondering what she was even supposed to say to get Soul to come in.

“Um, Maka, is this a bad time? Should I go back to bed?” Soul called.

Maka’s brain kicked back into gear. “No! No! Come on in, Soul. Sorry, I was in the zone.”

He was smiling when he opened the door, looking so handsome in his pale blue-grey cotton pajamas with his eyes the color of ripe strawberries and his light hair like spun silver floss. “What were you thinking about?” he asked her. “You seemed pretty deep in it.”

“Oh, nothing,” she said with a grin and patted the space on the bed beside her. “Can’t you sleep?”

Soul’s face flushed. “I could, but I thought I’d come in and talk to you instead. Do you mind?”

“Oh no. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

He glanced at her. “Why is that?”

“Um, Soul,” Maka began, “there’s been something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time…”

His eyes widened, silver lashes like lace. 

“I… I… I…”

His soft lips on her cheek cut her off. Sputtering, she turned to face him completely. Soul’s cheeks were pale pink, but his eyes were glowing. “I think… I know what you were going to say and I want you to know,” he leaned in and she felt his breath on her lips, “I feel the same.”

Then, he kissed her gently.

All coherent thought left Maka’s brain. Her fingers caught his shirt and pulled him closer before wandering up through his hair and clutching him even tighter. His arms went around her small body completely and pulled her close enough to share his skin. His tongue snaked out and touched her lower lip, asking for permission, and Maka would never have denied him anything from herself. Soul was the only person who had been there for her completely, even when he didn’t need to be, even back when he was a slave.

She opened her mouth and pulled him into her. Soul was so light in her hands, like an inexperienced child. He didn’t push her or pull her or demand anything from her like Ragnarok would have. Soul was different from everyone. He was like some kind of creature that had spilled out of a dream.

And he was Maka’s.

“Soul,” she whispered. “I want you to…”

He pulled back. “What?”

“Make love to me,” she whispered. She was so caught up in this moment with him that she hardly realized what she was asking. She just knew that she wanted to be closer to him on every level. She wanted to share his body, his skin, his life, and she wanted to give every part of herself to him. “Please…”

Soul kissed her again. “It’s fast, Maka,” he whispered against her lips.

She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “I don’t care. I want… I want you.”

His hands slipped up the back of her shirt and tenderly stroked her bared flesh. Then, his hands came around the front and found the deep fruit-like scar in the middle of her lower stomach. “This is… This is like Yuca,” he whispered.

Maka laid her hands over his. “Yeah. Stein said she destroyed… inside me… I can’t ever have children, just like Yuca.”

Soul looked into Maka’s beautiful face. “Will you ever be like her?”

She shook her head. “No, never.”

“Why?”

“Because… I have friends and,” she pecked Soul on the lips, “I have you. I have people to love and who love me. That was something Yuca never knew.”

Soul cupped her face lightly. “You’re a beautiful person, Maka.”

She giggled. “Thanks, Soul.”

Then, they kissed again and there felt like there was no more need for words. They were close enough to feel each other’s thoughts and desires, as if a part of their souls were overlapping and joining in the center. It was an incredible feeling, like nothing Maka had even dreamed about.

Maka pulled Soul down on top of her on the bed and wrapped her long legs around his narrow waist. Then, she slid her hands under his shirt. The scar bisecting his chest when Kuro had attacked them in the rain so long ago was a twisted beautiful thing, shining white on his softly tanned skin like a beacon of what he had done for her. Gently, she traced her lips up the path of the scar until she reached his throat and suckled his pulse there lightly. 

They were close to the same now, battered and scared, except this was Soul’s first time and it was not Maka’s. Ragnarok had taken that from her.

As if reading her mind, Soul purred low in his throat and kissed her until she forgot the meaning of all words except his name, which she gasped quite often. His hands lightly cupped her small breasts through her tank top and his thumbs stroked the hard pressing buds of her nipples. Then, he lifted the shirt over her head and pressed his lips to the swell of her breasts.

“Soul,” she gasped out. 

“Yes.”

“Let me… let me…”

She slithered out of his grasp and then knelt between his knees. 

“Let me do something for you.”

His face flushed. “You don’t…”

“But I want to.”

Gently, she unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it from his shoulders and then pulled his pajama pants down his hips. His shaft was thick and straining like a pole from his body. Gently, she wrapped her small hands around it and wet her lips before diving in. She licked from base to tip, tasting the hot silky softness of his flesh and then tenderly engulfed him in her mouth.

He groaned, fingers threading through her hair. For a moment, she feared she would force her head down, taking him deeper than she was prepared for, but this was Soul. He would never hurt her and he didn’t.

Maka sucked and began to move, bobbing her head to a pace Soul lightly set by guiding her head. Her hands explored him, stroking up and down the shaft, toying with his balls even though he jolted and shivered when she touched them, and her mouth lavished attention everywhere at once.

“Maka,” he groaned.

She released him and looked up into his face. “Will you still kiss me?”

He stared at her, perplexed. 

“Will you still kiss me, knowing where my mouth has been?”

Actions speak louder than words. Soul cupped the back of her head, pulled her up to meet him, and kissed her deeply. His tongue even snaked out to dance with hers. Gasping, Maka hung on to him and enjoyed his fearlessness. 

“Maka,” he gasped and his hands grasped her buttocks. He lifted her into his lap gently and she felt his hardness bump against the scar on her stomach.

“Soul,” she whispered and peeled down her shorts and underwear.

The heat of her sex was impossible and Soul gently cupped that bare heat. She was so wet and he hadn’t even touched her.

She rocked her hips, bumping his member against her core. “Soul…”

Gently, he rubbed himself between the wet folds of her sex, found her tight entrance, and slid in. She gasped, moaning as he filled her to the brim, and then just remained there, panting while her muscles stretched to accommodate him.

“Soul, you…”

“You feel so good, Maka,” he whispered and thrust lightly inside her, pushing even deeper.

“Ah!”

“Can I move?”

“God, please!”

Soul wrapped his arms around her hips and she braced herself on his shoulders. Then, with her still in his lap, he began to move. The silk of him sliding in and out of her wet heat was spectacular and Maka’s stomach felt like it was full of giant butterflies. Each thrust sent the breath exploding from her lungs in a gasp of his name.

He felt so good, so impossibly good.

Then, Soul’s soft pianist fingers found her sensitive clit and began stroking it as his pace became erratic and wild and even more powerful. The head of him was kissing her damaged womb deep inside. She dug into his shoulders tightly. What was this feeling? It was as if she was being overloaded, touched everywhere at once. Then, suddenly, she felt heat spilling deep inside her and Soul was gasping her name against the side of her throat. She lowered her chin and kissed him deeply, gasping for breath.

“Maka, if you weren’t pleased, I’m sor—”

She kissed him, cutting him off. “I love you, Soul,” she whispered. “I love you more than anything.”

Soul wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, softening inside her. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

Then, Maka lay beside him in her bed, naked and so warm. Then, for the first time in years, she fell asleep and slept the entire night away. Soul was awake for at least a few more minutes, holding her and stroking her hair. Of all the things that had happened to him, he had never expected to wind up in the place like this with the young woman he loved in his arms and his hurts all healed and his family dead. Yeah, life was funny and strange and terrible sometimes, but most of the time everything works out for the best. Maka moaned his name in her sleep and tightened her arms around his bare chest. After that night, Soul never slept in the living room again.

X X X

And, drum roll please, we are finished! Here we go.

Very important classic author's note:

First, drop a review and let me know what you think! Are the characters way out of character? Does everybody hate Yuca (personally, I was actually sad to kill her off. She was very easy to sympathize with.)? Maybe everyone hates Wes instead of Yuca? Think I torture Soul way too much (but it's because he's so easy to be mean to, though I always make sure to give everybody a happy ending!)? Are permanently disgusted and can no longer even watch Soul Eater thanks to me? Loved it? Hated it? Are scared for life because of what happened to Maka? Think there was way too much going on in this story? (Flames will be used to roast marshmallows and weenies!) Think I need to do more editing before I post chapters? Post to slow? Chapters are too short? Too long? Yada, yada, yada…

Second, I own nothing except my original characters: like Aurora and Dante Evans, Yuca and her henchmen Nero and Kuro, and I think that’s it. I also own my plot! So there, now I can't be sued!

Third, there will be no sequel… at all, so don't ask!

Fourth, stay tuned for my next story. (Heavy Heart to Carry already in progress with four chapters posted.)

Finally, thank you for making it this far! All the way to the end! Woot! Yay! And it was a long story, too, a lot to get through!

Please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! **The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger.** (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

And so, I bid you adieu. 

Questions, comments, concerns?


End file.
